Tag: united states

Looking Back on the “Slick of ’76”

  • Officials placed containment booms around the barge. Most of them failed to prevent the oil from floating downriver, contaminating dozens of miles of pristine shoreline. (Courtesy of the NY State Dept. of Conservation)

30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New York state. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:

Transcript

30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds
of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New
York State. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the
United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic
liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill.
The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:


It was really foggy that morning. Bob Smith awoke to two sounds:


“You could hear the anchor chains going down, and next thing we know
there was a young Coast Guard guy knocking on the front door.”


The Coast Guard guy had driven up, asking around for a missing barge.
Smith remembered the anchor chains echoing across the water that woke
him up. He went outside to look.


(Sound of walking outside)


Thirty years later, Smith lives amidst cozy cottages on manicured lawns in
the heart of the touristy Thousand Islands.


“Just right about straight out there. See where that boat’s coming up there
now?”


That’s where a barge carrying oil from Venezuela had dropped anchor after
running aground. That morning Smith watched crude as thick as mud drift
out of sight downriver:


“If you’re born and raised here on the river, you don’t like to see anything go
in the river that doesn’t belong there.”


The Coast Guard placed booms in the water, but the oil quickly spilled over.
It carried 50 miles downstream. It oozed as far as 15 feet into the river’s
marshes. Tom Brown was the point man for New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation. He says the spill couldn’t have come at a
worse time for wildlife:


“All the young fish, waterfowl, shorebirds, furbearers, were coming off the
nests and were being born.”


Thousands of birds and fish suffocated in black goo. As images of
devastation flashed on national TV, the spill killed the tourism season, too.
It was a summer with no swimming, no fishing, no dipping your feet in the
water at sunset. Really, it was a summer with no river.


(Sound of river at Chalk’s dock)


30 years later, everyone still remembers the acrid smell:


“When I woke up in the middle of the night and I could smell oil, I was
afraid I had an oil leak in my house.”


Dwayne Chalk’s family has owned a marina on the St. Lawrence for
generations. Chalk points to a black stripe of oil on his docks, still there
three decades later, and he’s still bitter:


“The Seaway has done this area, well, I shouldn’t say that, it hasn’t done any
good. To me it hasn’t.”


The St. Lawrence Seaway opened the ports of the Great Lakes to Atlantic
Ocean freighters carrying cargoes of steel, ore, and liquid chemicals. It
generates billions of dollars a year in commerce, but it’s also brought
pollution and invasive species.


Anthropologist John Omohundro studied the social effects of the 1976 oil
spill. He says it helped awaken environmentalism in the Great Lakes:


“The spill actually raised people’s consciousness that the river could be a
problem in a number of areas, not just oil.”


Groups like Save the River and Great Lakes United began lobbying for
cleaner water and safer navigation in the years after the spill:


“If a vessel carrying oil or oil products were in that same type of ship today,
it would not be allowed in.”


Albert Jacquez is the outgoing administrator for the US side of the St. Lawrence
Seaway. The 1976 barge had one hull and gushed oil when it hit the rocks.
Today’s barges are mostly double-hulled and use computerized navigation.
Jacquez says a lot has changed to prevent spills:


“The ships themselves are different, the regulations that they have to follow are
different, and the inspections are different. Now does that guarantee? Well,
there are no guarantees, period.”


So if there is a spill, the government requires response plans for every part of
the Great Lakes. Ralph Kring leads training simulations of those plans for
the Coast Guard in Buffalo. Still, he says the real thing is different:


“You really can’t control the weather and the currents and all that. It’s definitely going to be a
challenge, especially when you’re dealing with a real live incident where
everyone’s trying to move as fast as they can and also as efficient as they
can.”


Critics question the ability to get responders to remote areas in time. They
also worry about spills in icy conditions and chemical spills that oil booms
wouldn’t contain.


(Sound of river water)


Back on the St. Lawrence River, Dwayne Chalk says the oil spill of 1976
has taught him it’s not if, it’s when, the next big spill occurs:


“You think about it all the time. Everytime a ship comes up through here,
you think what’s going to happen if that ship hits something.”


Chalk and everyone else who relies on the Great Lakes hope they’ll never
have to find out.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Is Our Water Too Clean?

Diseases caused by contaminated water are common in the developing world, but they’re also making a comeback in the United States where the water might be too clean. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe
explains:

Transcript

Diseases caused by contaminated water are common in the developing
world, but they’re also making a comeback in the United States where
the water might be too clean. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Charity Nebbe has more:


In 1993, the water-borne pathogen Cryptosporidium claimed 54 lives in
Milwaukee. Incidents of that magnitude are rare, but outbreaks of
water-borne pathogens are increasingly common.


Floyd Frost is an epidemiologist at Lovelace Respiratory Research
Institute in New Mexico and he believes the increase in disease is
linked to improvement in water purification technology. As evidence he
points to his research, published in The Journal of Infectious
Diseases, that shows lower incidence of disease in communities that
drink surface water…


“Perhaps the low dose exposures in surface water are immunizing
people so that they don’t get sick, whereas in the ground water it’s
relatively clean most of the time, but when contamination occurs people
get much sicker.”


Frost believes that to prevent future outbreaks water treatment
facilities need to focus on preventing plant failures rather than
improving purification.


For the GLRC, I’m Charity Nebbe.

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Making Power Out of Pollution

  • Ford Motor Company installs a permanent Fumes to Fuel system at Michigan Truck Plant after a successful pilot program at the Ford Rouge Center last year. (Photo courtesy of Ford Motor Company)

Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up in smoke. But a promising new technology turns these ordinarily troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this
report:

Transcript

Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up
in smoke, but a promising new technology turns these ordinarily
troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable
these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie
Halpert has this report:


Remember the children’s story, where Rumpelstiltskin was able to take
straw, a cheap, abundant material, and magically transform it into
precious gold? Well, these days, cheap energy is like gold, and one
company has found a way to similarly generate power from pollution.


(Sound of engine running)


To see how it works, I’m standing on a roof sixty-five feet above the
ground. This is where Ford Motor Company maintains its pollution
control equipment. There are rectangular gray metal boxes as tall as I am
all over the roof, so many that we can barely walk between them. Under
the roof, they’re painting trucks. The paint emits vapors that Ford is now
capturing with these big boxes of machinery.


Mark Wherrett is Ford’s principal environmental engineer.


“We’re here at the Ford Motor Company Michigan truck plant, where the
paint solvent is collected from the process and used as a fuel to make
electricity in a Stirling Engine.”


The Stirling Engine is key. Here’s how it works. Ford’s using an engine
developed by STM Power. STM is using an old engine style called a
Stirling Engine that was once used in place of a steam engine. Instead of
using coal or wood to heat up water and make steam, STM burns the
paint fumes to heat up hydrogen and power the engine. The fumes will
generate 55 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to power 11 homes.


There’s not as much pollution emitted at the end, since burning can be
adjusted to temperatures where pollutants are reduced. Wherrett says
that for Ford, the technology simply has no downsides.


“The fumes to fuel process takes the environmental emissions and turns
them on their head, so instead of them being a waste product that we
have to dispose of, we can then turn it into a commodity where we can
then use that to make electricity and use that in our plant systems.”


And that means Ford doesn’t have to purchase as much power from the
grid.


Dorrance Noonan is CEO of STM Power, the company that’s redesigned
the old engine. Noonan says Ford is a perfect candidate for this
technology.


“We’re really excited about the Ford project because it offers a
tremendous opportunity to manufacturing companies and large paint
operations, who have large VOC problems that they have to deal with in
very expensive ways.”


The Ford plant is just the beginning for the company. They also plan to
deliver their portable on-site generators to landfills and wastewater
treatment plants. In that situation, methane gas is used as the fuel to
generate electricity. Noonan says his company has a bright future.


“Well, in the next couple of years, we see strong penetration in our two focus
markets, which are the landfill markets in the U.S. and the wastewater
treatment markets in the United States, and then we see that expansion
going outside of the United States to Europe and eventually to Asia.”


There are some skeptics.


Dan Rassler, with the Electric Power Research Institute, says STM’s
technology does have the potential to create viable new sources of
energy, but more companies need to actually start using it before he can
know for sure, and he says that right now the technology is still too
expensive for many companies.


“We’d like to see the capitol costs of these systems be lower than where
they are today.”


Right now, an STM unit costs $65,000. Rassler would like to see overall
costs cut by 10 to 20 percent. He says costs could decrease as more of
these units come on line.


STM CEO Dorrance Noonan says the costs are comparable to competing
on-site generators, and these expenses will be offset by using the free
fuel used to generate electricity that his engines provide. Noonan says
that continuing high natural gas prices will be his technology’s best
friend, as companies strive for ways to reduce energy costs.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Halpert.

Related Links

Indoor Shrimp Farming: A New Market?

  • Russ Allen breeds and grows thousands of shrimp in a barn in his backyard. The entire process is contained. There's no water coming in or going out, and there's no waste leaving his farm. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

Recently, shrimp surpassed tuna as the most-consumed seafood in the United States. Most of the shrimp Americans eat is produced in Southeast Asia, India, Mexico and Brazil. Russ Allen wants to change that. He’s opened one of the world’s few indoor shrimp farms in the Midwest. Allen says his operation meets an obvious market demand, is good for the environment, and presents a new economic opportunity for the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Recently, shrimp surpassed tuna as the most-consumed seafood in the
United States. Most of the shrimp Americans eat is produced in
Southeast Asia, India, Mexico and Brazil. Russ Allen wants to change
that. He’s opened one of the world’s few indoor shrimp farms in the
Midwest. Allen says his operation meets an obvious market demand, is
good for the environment, and presents a new economic opportunity for
the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


In a big blue barn in Russ Allen’s backyard, there are thousands of
shrimp… beady-eyed, bacteria-munching, bottom-feeders.


Here, the life cycle of the shrimp starts in the breeding center, where
two big tanks of water mimic a place 150 feet deep off the shore of the
ocean where the water quality and temperature are stable. Allen says
it’s the perfect environment for shrimp to mate.


“Like in just about all animals the male chases the female, and they do a
little courtship dance, and then the male will deposit a spermatophore on
the female and when she spawns, the eggs pass through the
spermatophore, are fertilized and then go out into the water.”


A few months later, the shrimp end up in the production room where all
they do is eat, and sometimes, if they get excited or spooked, they jump
right out of their tanks.


“They don’t like light…”


“Oh (laughing)! Do you ever have them hit you as you’re standing
here?”


“Oh yeah, that’s why we have the nets up so they don’t jump.”


Russ Allen has been farming shrimp for three decades. He started in
Ecuador, and then went to Belize, where he started the country’s first
shrimp farms.


Allen and his wife moved back to Michigan in 1990, when he started
designing his indoor shrimp farm. It finally opened for business about a
year ago, and now, he’s selling all the shrimp he produces.


(Sound of shrimp market)


Allen says his indoor shrimp farm is one of the first of its kind in the
world. There’s no waste leaving his farm, so pollution’s not an issue,
and because there’s no water coming in or going out, there’s no danger
of introducing diseases into his system.


Allen says an indoor farm also moves shrimp farming away from fragile
coastal ecosystems. That’s where most of the industry has developed
around the world.


“In a place like the United States with all the development on the
coastline and land costs, you can’t really do it anywhere near the ocean
anyway. So, if you’re going to have a viable shrimp farming system in
the United States, you need to move it away from – you know – these coastal areas.”


But indoor farms haven’t always been a viable option, either.


In the 1980s, a handful of them opened in the U.S., including a big one in
Chicago. They all failed because the technology didn’t work quite right,
and because the cost of production made them unable to compete with
outdoor farms.


Bill More is a shrimp farming consultant and vice president of the
Aquaculture Certification Council. He says now, indoor shrimp farmers
have a better chance of making a go of it.


“Coming from third-world countries, there’s been a lot of issues with
illegal antibiotics being found in shrimp. There’s been environmental
and social issues that environmentalists have come down hard upon. It’s
sort of prompted the opportunity for a good indoor system where
you could manage those and you didn’t challenge the environment.”


But More says creating and maintaining a clean, organic indoor shrimp
farm is still very expensive, and it seems an even bigger problem now
that the price of shrimp is the lowest it’s been in a decade.


Shrimp farmer Russ Allen says he’s invested several million dollars in
his business. He’s the only guy in the game right now, which he
admits is good for business, but he doesn’t want it that way. He says
he’d like to see the industry grow in Michigan, and throughout the
country.


“In order to do that the government has got to be a partner in this, and
that has been the challenge… that when you don’t have an industry, you
don’t have lobbyists and nobody listens to you and you can’t get an
industry until they do listen to you. So, that’s been our real challenge
right now.”


Allen says he wants the government to offer tax breaks and other
financial assistance to the aquaculture industry like it does to other
sectors of the economy, but he says he can’t even get some local elected
officials to come and see his shrimp farm. He says with so many
companies moving jobs and factories overseas, he thinks government
leaders should be looking for ways to help new and perhaps
unconventional industries like his, grow.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Pollution Hot Spots

  • Ruddiman Pond has been listed as a Great Lakes 'Area of Concern' for more than 18 years. (Photo by Michael Leland).

For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Our guide
in the series, Lester Graham, says one of the threats identified by experts
across the region is known as “Areas of Concern.”


For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:


Picture what you might think one of these heavily polluted sites looks like.
Did you think of a big park in a quiet neighborhood, with lots of tall
trees, and a bandstand next to a lagoon? No? Well, welcome to McGraft Park
in Muskegon, Michigan, the home of Ruddiman Pond, one of the most polluted
spots in the Great Lakes.


“This little lagoon here is a sediment basin. It is a sediment trap.”


Rick Rideske is a research scientist at the Annis Water Resource Institute
in Muskegon. It studies the quality of Michigan’s lakes and rivers.


“All of the contaminated sediment from the upper part of the watershed has made
its way down here and is being deposited. They are taking out, in some places,
15 feet of contaminated sediment.”


Beginning in the 1930’s, heavy industries began setting up shop along
Ruddiman Creek, a few miles from the park. Many dumped their toxic wastes
into nearby storm sewers, which emptied into the creek, and flowed toward
Ruddiman Pond. Toxic heavy metals like chromium and lead, along with
hazardous chemicals like PCB’s, settled to the bottom. It’s been a long
time since the pond has been safe for swimming.


Rideske points to a yellow sign nailed to a tree next to the pond. It says,
“No entry. Hazardous substances.”


“If you look at that sign over there, that sign was put up in maybe 1997, 98.
You can see the tree has grown over the sign.”


But beyond that sign is some hope for Ruddiman Creek and Pond. Workers are
scooping toxic mud from the bottom of the lagoon. The material is trucked
to a landfill licensed to receive toxic stuff like this. The project should
be finished by next summer.


Ruddiman Creek and Pond make up one of 43 pollution hot spots in the Great
Lakes that the U.S. and Canada call Areas of Concern. So far, two in Canada
have been cleaned up. Ruddiman Creek is one of only three in the U.S. being
cleaned.


David Ullirch would like to see that work move a lot faster. He directs the Great
Lakes Initiative. It’s a group of mayors and other officials from the U.S. and
Canada that works to preserve the Lakes.


“This is a serious problem, not only in terms of a threat to the natural environment,
there are public health issues associated with them and often, even worse, is that
they are a stigma to those areas, whether it is Waukegan Harbor, or Gary, Indiana, or
Ashtabula Harbor, these are things that these cities have had to live with for
years, and it’s time to get them cleaned up and get on with it.”


The government is supposed to provide 270-million dollars over five years to
clean up the Areas of Concern in the United States, but so far, congress
has appropriated only about 35-million dollars. That relatively small amount
of cash has limited the number of cleanups that can be started, and it frustrates
Dennis Schornack. He’s the U.S. chairman of the International Joint Commission.
It’s a watchdog group that monitors the water quality treaty between the U.S. and
Canada.


“These areas were identified back in 1987, and only two, both of which are in Canada,
have been delisted since that time. At that pace of progress, it will be 400 years
before we are so-called clean, and I think that is very disappointing.”


In the case of Ruddiman Creek, they’re glad at least one site is being cleaned up.
Rick Rideske of the Annis Institute says the fact that it’s in a neighborhood park
played a big role in attracting the attention, and government cash needed to clean
it up.


“It really took the local residents, public advisory council, we have a Ruddiman
Creek Task Force, which is made of local people from this neighborhood. They called
frequently state representatives, federal representatives. Getting this site on the
priority list was a community effort for a lot of people.”


Rideske and people who live near McGraft Park are looking forward to celebrating a
small victory in the fight to restore the Great Lakes, and they’re looking forward to
taking down that yellow warning sign next year.


For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

Related Links

Will New Auto Technologies Lead to Job Losses?

  • Hybrid cars like the Honda Insight are becoming more popular with consumers. However, a study predicts a decrease in jobs if sales of hybrids increase sharply. (Photo by Paige Foster)

A new report says new automotive technology such as gasoline-electric hybrid engines could cost thousands of American jobs. Researchers say states with large numbers of autoworkers could be hurt the most. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland:

Transcript

A new report says new automotive technology such as
gasoline-electric hybrid engines could cost thousands of American
jobs. Researchers say states with large numbers of autoworkers
could be hurt the most. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Michael Leland:


Sales of gasoline-electric hybrids amounted to less than one-percent of all
the vehicles sold in the U.S. last year. But researchers at the University
of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute say hybrids, and vehicles
made with advanced diesel powertrains, could make up eleven percent of total
sales by 2009.


If that happens, the Institute projects it could cost the
U.S. about 200-thousand jobs. Pat Hammett directed the study. He says that
figure includes both actual jobs lost and new jobs not created.


“A lot of the hybrid components, for example, actually are new componentry
inside a vehicle. So, it isn’t necessarily that you are losing jobs in some
of that area, it could just be an example of not getting the growth.”


Hammett says auto-producing states like Michigan, Ohio and Indiana would be
affected more than others. The report says states could reduce jobs lost to
new technologies by offering tax credits to encourage production in the
United States.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.

Related Links

Pollution Credits as Stocking Stuffers

Here’s a last-minute gift idea for a green-thinking loved one. A New York-based environmental group will retire a pollution credit in someone’s honor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein explains:

Transcript

Here’s a last-minute gift idea for a green-thinking loved one. A New York-
based environmental group will retire a pollution credit in someone’s honor.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein explains:


The Environmental Protection Agency issues pollution credits to power
plants. Each one allows them to emit one ton of sulfur dioxide from their
smokestack.


Several years ago, one power company donated 10,000 of the credits to the
Adirondack Council. The group’s a non-profit working to reduce acid rain.
Instead of trading them on the open market, where they can fetch up to 800
dollars apiece, the Council decided to retire the credits. Spokesman John
Sheehan says for 50 bucks, the group will send someone a gift certificate.


“That certificate will show that that person has removed essentially one ton
of sulfur dioxide from the atmosphere permanently and that that pollution
will never go up a smokestack anywhere in the country, and it will help
clean up the Adirondacks and the rest of the United States at the same time.”


Sheehan says the Adirondack Council has about 3,000 credits left. His staff
will be around until Thursday to help people give the gift of cleaner air this
Christmas.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Roadblocks to Closing Toxic Waste Loophole

  • Trash and toxic waste cross the U.S.-Canada border every day, and untreated toxic waste often ends up at the Clean Harbors facility. Some are trying to restrict this practice and purge the idea that waste is a commodity.

There’s only one place in North America that still dumps
toxic waste straight into the ground without any kind of pre-treatment. A legislator from Ontario, Canada wants this landfill to clean up its act. But trade in toxic waste is big business. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan follows some trucks to learn more:

Transcript

There’s only one place in North America that still dumps toxic waste straight into the ground without any kind of pre-treatment. A legislator from Ontario, Canada wants this landfill to clean up its act. But trade in toxic waste is a big business. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan follows some trucks to learn more:


(Sound of trucks)


6,000 trucks cross the Blue Water Bridge every day between Canada and the United States. Just under the bridge, Lake Huron funnels into the skinny St. Clair River on its way to south to Lake Erie. The Blue Water Bridge connects Port Huron, Michigan with Sarnia, Ontario. This is the second busiest truck crossing between the United States and Canada. With post 9/11 security, the border can get backed up for miles in both directions. A lot of these trucks are carrying garbage back and forth across the border. Canadian trash and toxic waste is going to the U.S. and American toxic waste is going to Canada.


During her first month in office, Ontario Member of Parliament for Sarnia-Lambton, Caroline Di Cocco, found out just how much toxic waste was coming into her district.


“In 1999 that year, it was over 450,000 tons. To put it in perspective, the Love Canal was 12,000 tons.”


Di Cocco went on a five year crusade to change the Ontario laws that govern the trade in toxic waste. She adopted the U.N. resolution known as the Basel Agreement, as her model.


“The notion from that Basel Agreement is that everybody should look after their own waste and it is not a commodity.”


Di Cocco is not alone in her fight to slow or stop the flow of garbage and toxic waste from crossing the border. Mike Bradley is the mayor of Sarnia, Ontario. He can see the backup on the Blue Water Bridge every day from his home.


“One of the ironies on this is that while Michigan is very much upset, and rightly so, with the importation of Toronto trash, there are tens of thousands of tons of untreated toxic waste coming in from Michigan crossing the Blue Water Bridge into the Clean Harbors site.”


The Clean Harbors facility is the only place in North America that does not pre-treat hazardous waste before it dumps it into its landfill. Frank Hickling is Director of Lambton County Operations for Clean Harbors. He says imports from nearby states in the U.S. accounts for about forty percent of its volume.


“It’s from the Great Lakes area. We do reach down and take waste that our facility is best able to handle. We’re right on the border.”


Rarely do lawmakers on both sides of the border agree on an environmental issue. But pre-treatment of hazardous waste is the law in all fifty states, Mexico and every other Canadian province and territory except Ontario. Pre-treatment reduces the amount of toxic waste or transforms it into a less hazardous substance. But Hickling says disposing hazardous waste in Clean Harbors is a better economic bet.


“Obviously, if you don’t have to pre-treat it, it is cheaper there’s no doubt about that. But what isn’t obvious is the security of the site. Pre-treating waste doesn’t help immobilize the material forever.”


Clean Harbors’ company officials say their landfill won’t leak for 10,000 years. They say that the U.S. pre-treats hazardous waste because they expect their landfills to leak in hundreds of years or less. Hickling says the blue clay of Lambton County that lines Clean Harbors landfill gives them a competitive edge as a toxic dump.


“The facility is in a 140-foot clay plain and we go down about 60 feet. So there’s 80 feet below.”


But Clean Harbors has had big environmental problems. When volume was at its peak in 1999 the Clean Harbors landfill leaked methane gas and contaminated water. Remedial pumping of the landfill is ongoing.


Caroline Di Cocco found other ways to deal with toxic waste rather than simply dumping it in her district.


“First of all, there has to be a reduction of the amount of generation of this hazardous material. The more expensive you make it for industry to dispose of it, the more they are going to find creative ways to reduce it. Then there are what they call on-site treatments and closed-loop systems. You see technology is there but it’s expensive and again we go to the cost of doing business. And so a lot of the hazardous waste can be treated on site in a very safe way. And then what can’t be, well then you have to have facilities to dispose of it. But I believe that the days of the mega dumps have to end.”


Meanwhile, Clean Harbors looks at what the new Ontario regulations for pre-treatment will cost them.


“Certainly when you’re making the investment in pre-treatment and you’re adding all that cost for no additional environmental benefit we’re going to have to be getting larger volumes to ensure its profitability.”


Until we see a reduction in the loads of toxic waste that need to be dumped in Clean Harbors, it’s likely the trucks will roll on down the highway.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Ann Colihan.

Related Links

Drivers Filling Up With Cleaner Fuel

  • Low-sulfur fuel is now available to everyone, even if they haven't realized it yet. (Photo by Pam Roth)

A quiet revolution of cleaner air began this year for cars
and trucks. Motorists might not know it, but they’ve been burning
low-sulfur fuel as part of a requirement under the federal Clean Air
Act. The requirement was put in place during the Clinton Administration.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:

Transcript

A quiet revolution of cleaner air began this year for cars and trucks. Motorists might
not know it, but they’ve been burning low-sulfur fuel as part of requirement under the
federal Clean Air Act. The requirement was put in place during the Clinton Administration.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:


Low-sulfur fuel is sometimes referred to as “green gas.” The gas isn’t really colored green.
But if it was, people might have noticed that they’re pumping different gas. For two years,
refineries in the United States have been investing millions of dollars to produce the new gas.
Dave Podratz is the manager of the Murphy Oil refinery in Superior, Wisconsin. He says his
refinery spent 26 million dollars to begin making the gas since October.


“It’s not the kind of thing you would notice, the average consumer going to the pump probably
wouldn’t even notice it watching tail pipe emissions, but the sufur dioxide emissions are
definitely going down.”


Podratz says the new fuel cut the amount of sulfur by 90 percent. And other tail pipe
emissions are going down as well. That’s because low sulfur fuel improves the efficiency
of your car’s catalytic converter, Which, in turn, reduces the amount of pollutants like
nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

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Group Calls for U.S. Ban on Lindane Use

  • (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

An environmental group is calling for the United States to ban a pesticide used to treat head lice. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:

Transcript

An environmental group is calling for the United States to ban a pesticide used
to treat head lice. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:


Lindane is most commonly used as a pesticide for corn, wheat, and other grains.
It’s also used as a medication to kill lice and scabies. But the Food and Drug
Administration warns that lindane should only be used when all other treatment
options are exhausted. That’s because the FDA has found that in very isolated
cases, lindane can cause seizures or even death.


Kristin Schafer is the Program Coordinator for the Pesticide Action Network. The
group is seeking a ban on lindane in the United States.


“This is the type of chemical that there’s no reason not to get it off the market.
It’s dangerous, it builds up in our bodies. It’s particularly dangerous to children
and there are alternatives for all uses.”


Schafer says 52 countries and the state of California have already banned lindane.
Canada plans to eliminate agricultural uses of lindane by the end of the year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.

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