The Incredible, Edible Weed

  • People brought Garlic Mustard to the US in the mid-1800s because they liked it, to eat. And they even used it for medicine.(Photo courtesy of the NBII, Elizabeth A. Sellers)

An invasive plant called Garlic Mustard is taking over forests in the Eastern half of the country, and it could be causing long term damage. Julie Grant reports that some people are getting smart in their efforts to get rid of Garlic Mustard:

Transcript

An invasive plant called Garlic Mustard is taking over forests in the Eastern half of the country, and it could be causing long term damage. Julie Grant reports that some people are getting smart in their efforts to get rid of Garlic Mustard:

Brad Steman spends a lot of time in the woods. He likes the serenity. But as we walk through this park, he winces. The entire forest floor is carpeted with one plant and one plant only: Garlic Mustard. Thousands of them. The thin green stalks are as tall as our ankles.

Steman calls it “the evil weed.” Its triangle-shaped leaves shade out wildflowers, so they don’t grow. Even worse, Steman says Garlic Mustard poisons baby trees.

“So a forest filled with Garlic Mustard you will see very little regeneration of that forest, very few seedlings, small trees. So looking down the line, once those large trees start dying off there’s nothing to replace them. And that now is the greatest threat to our Eastern forests.”

Steman says every year Garlic Mustard is spreading farther into the woods. Anywhere the ground is disturbed.

“So here’s a big stand of it along a trail. This is typically where it starts. This is thick. This is a healthy stand. There’s potential there for an explosion. So we should probably pull some. I’ll pull some; you don’t have to pull any.”

Thank goodness he’s doing it – it looks like tedious work. Steman crouches down and starts pulling them out of the ground, roots and all. He sprayed herbicide on some of it, and so far this season he’s filled 35 big garbage bags with Garlic Mustard plants. He’s sick of weeding. But it doesn’t look like he’s made a dent here. All along the Eastern half of the US and Canada people are pulling up Garlic Mustard from parks and just throwing it away. But some people don’t like this approach.

“All these people are very shortsighted when they’re doing that.”

Peter Gail is a specialist in edible weeds.

“They’re not looking for other alternative uses – creative ways to use these plants that would be profitable, that would be productive.”

Gail says: “If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em.” People brought Garlic Mustard to the US in the mid-1800s because they liked it, to eat. And they even used it for medicine. Yep. That same nasty weed.

Gail says today Garlic Mustard just needs an image makeover. Some weeds have become big stars in the cooking world. A few years ago Purselane was just an unwanted vine, with its fleshy, shiny leaves matted to the ground. Now it’s known as a nutritional powerhouse, and is the darling of New York and LA eateries. Gail wants that kind of fame for Garlic Mustard.

“This is a Garlic Mustard Ricotta dip, Garlic Mustard salsa, stuffed Garlic Mustard leaves – these are all things you can do with this stuff. It’s fantastic!”

Garlic Mustard seeds taste like mustard, the leaves taste like garlic and the roots are reminiscent of horseradish. Gail says people should go after Garlic Mustard in the parks, but then they should take it to farm markets to sell.

“My normal statement is that the best way to demoralize weeds is to eat them. Because when you eat them they know you like them and they don’t want to be there anymore, and so they leave.”

Today Gail decides to blend a pesto using the early spring leaves. He picks every last Garlic Mustard in his yard to make a batch.

“Well there it is, garlic mustard pesto. And it isn’t bad, is it?”

“It’s delicious.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

“I’ll use that on ravioli tonight.”

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Recycling Goes Postal

  • The US Postal Service is beginning an e-waste recycling program through the mail (Photo courtesy of the USPS)

Many of us just don’t know what to do
with that old cell phone or outdated digital
camera. While some companies take the devices
back, not all do. Now, the US Postal Service
says it’s coming to the rescue. Mark Brush
reports – the post office is developing a free
electronics recycling program:

Transcript

Many of us just don’t know what to do
with that old cell phone or outdated digital
camera. While some companies take the devices
back, not all do. Now, the US Postal Service
says it’s coming to the rescue. Mark Brush
reports – the post office is developing a free
electronics recycling program:

Throwing out an old electronic device is wrong for several reasons. The devices can
contain toxic heavy metals which can pollute the environment. And there are many parts
that can be reused.

The US Postal Service is piloting a recycling program in some big cities across the
country – including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C.

They’re giving people
free, postage-paid envelopes. You can stuff your old cell phone or mp3 player into the
envelope and drop it in the mail.

It’s delivered to a recycling company called Clover Technologies Group. The company
says it tries to refurbish and resell what it can. If the device can’t be resold, it’s broken
down, and the materials that can be are recycled. The other stuff is thrown in a landfill.

Critics say while these recycling programs are a good first step, the companies who
make these devices should design them so all the parts can be reused.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

The Incredible, Edible Weed

  • Garlic mustard ranges from eastern Canada, south to Virginia and as far west as Kansas and Nebraska (Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service's Plant Conservation Alliance)

An invasive plant called Garlic Mustard is
taking over forests in the Eastern half of the country,
and it could be causing long term damage. Julie Grant
reports that some people are getting smart in their
efforts to get rid of Garlic Mustard:

Transcript

An invasive plant called Garlic Mustard is
taking over forests in the Eastern half of the country,
and it could be causing long term damage. Julie Grant
reports that some people are getting smart in their
efforts to get rid of Garlic Mustard:

Brad Steman spends a lot of time in the woods. He likes the serenity.
But as we walk through this park, he winces. The entire forest floor is
carpeted with one plant and one plant only: Garlic Mustard.
Thousands of them. The thin green stalks are as tall as our ankles.

Steman calls it “the evil weed.” Its triangle-shaped leaves shade out
wildflowers, so they don’t grow. Even worse, Steman says Garlic
Mustard poisons baby trees.

“So a forest filled with Garlic Mustard you will see very little
regeneration of that forest, very few seedlings, small trees. So
looking down the line, once those large trees start dying off there’s
nothing to replace them. And that now is the greatest threat to our
Eastern forests.”

Steman says every year Garlic Mustard is spreading farther into the
woods. Anywhere the ground is disturbed.

“So here’s a big stand of it along a trail. This is typically where it
starts. This is thick. This is a healthy stand. There’s potential there
for an explosion. So we should probably pull some. I’ll pull some;
you don’t have to pull any.”

Thank goodness he’s doing it – that looks it looks like tedious work.
Steman crouches down and starts pulling them out of the ground,
roots and all. He sprayed herbicide on some of it, and so far this
season he’s filled 35 big garbage bags with Garlic Mustard plants.
He’s sick of weeding. But it doesn’t look like he’s made a dent here.
All along the Eastern half of the US and Canada people are pulling up
Garlic Mustard from parks and just throwing it away. But some
people don’t like this approach.

“All these people are very shortsighted when they’re doing that.”

Peter Gail is a specialist in edible weeds.

“They’re not looking for other alternative uses – creative ways to use these plants that would be
profitable, that would be productive.”

Gail says: “If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em.” People brought Garlic
Mustard to the US in the mid-1800s because they liked it, to eat. And
they even used it for medicine. Yep. That same nasty weed.

Gail says today Garlic Mustard just needs an image makeover.
Some weeds have become big stars in the cooking world. A few
years ago Purselane was just an unwanted vine, with its fleshy, shiny
leaves matted to the ground. Now it’s known as a nutritional
powerhouse, and is the darling of New York and LA eateries. Gail
wants that kind of fame for Garlic Mustard.

“This is a Garlic Mustard Ricotta dip, Garlic Mustard salsa, stuffed Garlic Mustard leaves – these are all things you can do with this stuff. It’s fantastic!”

Garlic Mustard seeds taste like mustard, the leaves taste like garlic
and the roots are reminiscent of horseradish.
Gail says people should go after Garlic Mustard in the parks, but then
they should take it to farm markets to sell.

“My normal statement is that the best way to demoralize weeds is to
eat them.
Because when you eat them they know you like them and they don’t
want to be there anymore, and so they leave.”

(blender sound)

Today Gail decides to blend a pesto using the early spring leaves.
He picks every last Garlic Mustard in his yard to make a batch.

“Well there it is, garlic mustard pesto. And it isn’t bad, is it?”
Julie Grant: “It’s delicious.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.
Gail: “I’ll use that on ravioli tonight.”

Related Links

Stopping Ships’ Stowaways

  • A ship discharging its ballast water (Photo courtesy of the US Geological Survey)

Congress might take a final vote soon on a bill
that would make foreign ships treat ballast water to
kill unwanted species, before entering US waters.
Many environmental groups support the measure, but some
worry about the loss of state control. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Transcript

Congress might take a final vote soon on a bill
that would make foreign ships treat ballast water to
kill unwanted species, before entering US waters.
Many environmental groups support the measure, but some
worry about the loss of state control. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Backers of the ballast water requirement, recently passed by the House, hope to reduce the
number of invasive species brought in by foreign vessels.

Dozens of non-native species, like the zebra mussel, are causing major problems in the
Great Lakes. But the group ‘Midwest Environmental Advocates’ is raising concerns.

Executive Director Karen Schapiro says the House bill would prevent states from
developing ballast water treatment standards that are tougher than federal law, or that
take effect sooner.

“You know we would like to see the most feasibly stringent standards on the table, on the books,
even if that’s done on a state by state basis.”

But the shipping industry says it doesn’t want a patchwork of state regulations. The
national ballast water language is part of a Coast Guard bill that still has to be reconciled
with a Senate measure.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Ten Threatened Rivers

  • Grand Canyon National Park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

An environmental group says some of America’s
rivers are endangered by people using too much water.
Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

An environmental group says some of America’s
rivers are endangered by people using too much water.
Lester Graham reports:

Each year the group American Rivers lists ten rivers that are at risk because of
upcoming decisions. Rebecca Wodder is the president of the group. She says several of the rivers face a common problem.

“Of the ten rivers, six of them are threatened by the same issue and that is excessive
water withdrawals.”

Most of the because of expanding populations, one because of agricultural irrigation.
Using too much water from a river endangers fish and water supplies downstream.

The rivers on the list include the Catawba-Wateree in the Carolinas, Rogue River in
Oregon, the Poudre in Colorado, the St. Lawrence River connecting the Great Lakes to
the Atlantic Ocean, the Minnesota River, St. Johns in Florida, the Gila in Arizona and New
Mexico, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in Maine, the Niobrara in Wyoming, and the
Pearl River in Mississippi and Louisiana.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Report: West Warming Fast

  • The Colorado River in the Eastern end of the Grand Canyon National Park, below Desert View Overlook (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

A report from environmentalists concludes the
American West is getting hotter faster than the rest of
the globe. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A report from environmentalists concludes the
American West is getting hotter faster than the rest of
the globe. Lester Graham reports:

Now, this report was not peer reviewed, but The Natural Resources Defense Council and the
Rocky Mountain Climate Organization insist the data show it’s gotten hotter in the West
when you compare the last five years to the global average during the last century.

Theo Spencer is with the NRDC. He says water is always important in the West, and
this climate change is causing problems.

“The Colorado River Basin, which provides water for about 30 million people in the West, the temperature over the past 5 years increased 2.2 degrees. So that’s 120% more than the rest of the globe.”

The report says the Colorado is in a record drought – and that affects Denver,
Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Killing the Common Carp

  • The Common Carp was introduced a century ago and has been causing havoc in rivers, ponds and lakes ever since. (Image by Duane Raver, courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

In thousands of lakes and ponds across the country, there’s a fish messing up the water.
Some biologists say we’ve never seen these lakes the way nature intended due to the
common carp. The usual method to get rid of the common carp is to kill everything in
the lake and start over. Some biologists think there’s got to be a better way. Joel
Grostephan reports:

Transcript

In thousands of lakes and ponds across the country, there’s a fish messing up the water.
Some biologists say we’ve never seen these lakes the way nature intended due to the common carp. The usual method to get rid of the common carp is to kill everything in
the lake and start over. Some biologists think there’s got to be a better way. Joel
Grostephan reports:


Common carp are like underwater pigs. They root up aquatic plants. They constantly stir
up the mud in the bottoms of lakes, making them murky. And in some lakes, common
carp make up more than half of the total weight of fish. Peter Sorensen is a fisheries
professor at the University of Minnesota:


“With their habit of rooting around night and day, they will completely destroy the
bottoms of lakes, so they become cesspools.”


And it ruins the habitat for many birds and fish too:


“The fact is they are doing enormous damage. At a level that I don’t think people
fully realize. They are living with us, and we don’t know in many cases, what
these lakes and streams and rivers should be like and could be like.”


Common carp have been in U.S. lakes and ponds for more than a century. They came
from Europe and Asia. At the request of new immigrants, the United States government
stocked carp in lakes and rivers in the late 1800’s. Sorensen says it didn’t take long before
there were problems.


By the early 1900’s, it clicked this was a huge mistake, and they started to remove
them. Good records were not kept, and Sorensen says the overall impression is that
removal efforts didn’t work. Most attempts to control the fish are still unreliable. The fish
is very tough. It spawns every year, and females produce nearly a million eggs.


Fisheries managers try to control carp the best they know how. Some hire commercial
fisherman to net the carp. They also use poison — killing all the carp and all the other
fish in the lake and then start over.


Fisheries managers currently use a chemical called Rotenone, which they say is not toxic
to humans. Lee Sundmark is with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources:


“If we see that a lake that a lake way out of balance, might have a lot of carp,
bullheads, tried biological means, and they aren’t working. Sometimes we get to the
point where we use Rotenone to treat it. We basically clean a lake out, and then we
might restock it.”


The trouble is sometimes not all the carp die. And just a handful of them can reproduce
and dominate that lake within a few years. Peter Sorensen and his team of researchers
believe there’s a better way. Sorenson says he does not object to Rotenone poisoning out-
of-hand but, he says, it’s expensive, heavy handed. He and his team have been studying
carp-infested lakes for the past three years to see if they can come up with a new method
to control the fish.


On this cold day, the biologists are surgically implanting radio tags in carp. The
scientists will be tracking these fish so they can find weak points in their lifecycle.
Prezmyslaw Bajer and his colleague Mario Traveline are about to operate on a fish they
caught:


“She will be collecting data that we will then use to remove carp from the lake. She
will be our carp spy.”


The researchers say if they can figure out the habits, and the instincts of the Common
Carp, they will able to control them in way that’s both — effective, and doesn’t kill all the
other fish in the lake. The study’s lead investigator, Sorensen, says this is important
work:


“Something must be done. This is our first, and most damaging species, and if we
don’t do something with this, that like I said, we can do something about — I wonder
what hope there is for any of them. This is to me, the one you got to take out.”


Sorensen says he hopes he can create a model that can be replicated in different parts of
the country. If he’s successful, the ponds, lakes and rivers that have been assaulted by the
carp for the last century might once again be able to host fish and other wildlife that were
forced out.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joel Grostephan.

Related Links

West Nile Virus Returns

West Nile Virus has swept the nation from east to west, but it’s hitting some areas
harder than others. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

West Nile Virus has swept the nation from east to west, but it’s hitting some areas
harder than others. Lester Graham reports:


Nationwide this year, there have been 576 cases of West Nile Virus reported in humans this
year. The mosquito-borne disease has spread across the nation. Emily Zielinski-
Gutierrez, with the Centers for Disease Control, says some areas are worse than
others. There are West Nile Virus hotspots in the Dakotas and Nebraska, but it can
pop up anwhere… especially where there’s been a lot of rain or flooding:


“Basically, if you’re anywhere in the United States, you need to worry about a
mosquito bite that you get. If you’re in these states that have experienced and
communities that have experienced more intense activity, you need to be even that
much more concerned about protecting yourself from mosquito bites.”


She says look for the ingredient DEET in mosquito repellant. The CDC warns just
because you’ve not heard a lot about West Nile Virus in the news this year doesn’t mean it’s
not a problem in your area.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Discouraging Bottled Water

Over the last six years, bottled water consumption has gone up 60
percent in the United States. That means a lot of plastic bottles are
being thrown out. As Brad Linder reports, businesses and local
governments across the country are trying to encourage people to cut
back on bottled water:

Transcript

Over the last six years, bottled water consumption has gone up 60
percent in the United States. That means a lot of plastic bottles are
being thrown out. As Brad Linder reports, businesses and local
governments across the country are trying to encourage people to cut
back on bottled water:


Environmentally-conscious restaurants around the country have begun
removing bottled water from their menus. And the city of New York has
launched a new advertising campaign to convince citizens to drink tap
water. They tout it as “fat-free,” and “delicious.”


Susan Neely is the president of the American Beverage Association. She
says these campaigns miss the point:


“We need clean, accessible, safe tap water. But there’s great advantages
to bottled water, too. It’s portable, it’s convenient. And we can more
easily do what doctors and nutritionists are telling us to do, which is to drink more
water, particularly in these hot summer months.”


Neely says plastic bottles make up only one third of one percent of the
nation’s waste, and that’s not including the bottles that are recycled.


But not every bottle gets recycled. And it takes both energy and
petroleum to produce and distributed bottled water. That’s why cities
like New York are promoting tap water as an environmentally-friendly
alternative.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

Related Links

New Virus in Mississippi River

Fish biologists are worried about a
virus from Europe that is killing fish in the
Mississippi River. Sandra Harris reports:

Transcript

Fish biologists are worried about a virus from Europe that is killing fish in the
Mississippi River. Sandra Harris reports:


Spring Viremia is killing carp in the Mississippi River. Biologists are concerned the
virus could spread to other smaller related fish, called cyprinids, that are used for bait. Ron Benjamin is
a fish biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources:


“Right now, we’re not seeing that happen. We see the forest base is pretty stable out there. Like I say, it does affect other cyprinids but it’s to various degrees. And so, at least so far, we haven’t seen that impact.”


Benjamin says Spring Viremia was discovered in the Mississippi in 2002 when
antibodies of the virus were found in carp. It is not harmful to humans who eat the fish.
The virus is thought to have been brought to the United States in goldfish imported from
Europe.


For the Environment Report, I’m Sandra Harris.

Related Links