Senator Robert F. Bennett blocked the nomination of David Hayes as the Deputy Interior Secretary (Photo courtesy of the US Senate)
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Transcript
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar says he knows his old Senate colleague Bob Bennett of Utah very well, and he understands the politics behind blocking the nomination of Salazar’s deputy.
Senator Bennett and his fellow Republicans blocked the nomination of David Hayes after Secretary Salazar canceled leases for oil and gas drilling near National Parks in Utah.
Salazar says the leases were rushed through late in the Bush administration without proper environmental review.
Senate Democrats say the Hayes nomination will be brought up again. Secretary Salazar says he hopes so.
“I sure hope that it happens. You know I think Senator Durbin and others, Senator Reid, indicated they think that it can happen this week. I hope that it does.”
The Democrats will need the votes of Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd. Both men have been absent from the Senate because of health problems.
Nuclear waste storage is an issue that concerns many. Some worry that if storage facilities at Yucca Mountain aren't completed soon enough, above-ground storage will have to be employed. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
Some federal officials say work on a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain isn’t moving fast enough. So they want the government to start developing above-ground storage sites. But one private firm says above-ground storage is already available. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandra Harris
reports:
Transcript
Some federal officials say work on a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain isn’t moving fast enough, so they want the government to start developing above-ground storage sites. But one private firm says above-ground storage is already available. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandra Harris reports:
House Energy and Water Development Committee Chair David Hobson has put ten million dollars in an appropriations bill to find interim above-ground waste storage sites.
But the CEO of private fuel storage says a temporary site his groups worked on for more than ten years will hold all the country’s waste.
John Parkyn says Hobson may not be aware of it.
“I’m certainly communicating to him exactly where we are, but the idea that we would spend significant amounts of taxpayer money to replicate something that has already been funded with non-taxpayer money would certainly involve a lot of political scrutiny, as to why you would ever replicate it and add another six or seven years on.”
Parkyn says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could soon approve or deny his company’s license for its site on the Skull Valley Indian Reservation in Utah.
Initial approval of a temporary site to store spent nuclear waste at an Indian reservation in Utah is welcome news for eight electric utilities and cooperatives around the country – especially since approval of a permanent site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, has been delayed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandra Harris reports:
Transcript
Initial approval of a temporary site to store spent nuclear waste at an Indian reservation in Utah is
welcome news for eight electric utilities and cooperatives around the country – especially since
approval of a permanent site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, has been delayed. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Sandra Harris reports:
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has recommended an operating license for a temporary
nuclear fuel storage site on the Skull Valley Indian Reservation in central Utah. Officials say if
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants the license, the earliest waste could be shipped would
be 2008.
John Parkyn is the CEO of Private Fuel Storage – the group hoping to build the site. He says
waste is currently stored at 72 sites around the country and poses a safety issue.
“We have a isolated site in the middle of the desert where the nearest person is 2 1/2 miles away,
so even the security issue, post 9-11, is greatly enhanced by storing it in one location.”
Opponents to the temporary site say they still hope the license won’t be granted. They fear the
temporary Skull Valley site will become permanent because of the delays occurring at Yucca
Mountain.
President Bush has chosen Utah Governor Mike Leavitt as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Some environmentalists say this nomination indicates that the Bush administration is no longer concerned about placating conservationists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
Transcript
President Bush has chosen Utah Governor Mike Leavitt as the new head of the
Environmental
Protection Agency. Some environmentalists say this nomination indicates that the Bush
administration is no longer concerned about placating conservationists. The Great
Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
If Leavitt is confirmed by the Senate, he will replace Christie Todd Whitman, who
resigned in
May.
Business leaders and Republicans describe Leavitt as a moderate and a consensus
builder.
Environmental groups, though, say Utah’s governor has a history of allowing
corporations to
pollute the state’s forests and waterways.
Scott Groene is the staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
“He’s a smart man and he’ll be very careful not to blunder by telling the public
what he’s doing if
he’s actually rolling back environmental protections. That’s certainly what we’ve
seen here in
Utah, is that he’ll take some fairly extreme actions but then he’ll manage to claim
the middle
ground with his rhetoric.”
Leavitt says he wants to give states a larger role in environmental regulation. His
confirmation
hearings will be scheduled when the Senate returns to Washington in September.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.
According to the food policy group Oxfam-America, more than 300,000 small farms have gone out of business in America over the last 20 years alone. Falling prices, imported produce and encroaching suburbs have all taken their toll on the family farm. But some farmers are finding new ways to keep their land and their lifestyles intact. More than a dozen of them in the Great Lakes states and southern Ontario are doing it by marketing their farms as a great place to visit. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell reports from Hilton, New York:
Transcript
According to the food policy group Oxfam-America, more than 300-thousand small farms have gone out of business in America over the last 20 years alone. Falling prices, imported produce and encroaching suburbs have all taken their toll on the family farm. But some farmers are finding new ways to keep their land and their lifestyles intact. More than a dozen of them in the Great Lakes states and southern Ontario are doing it by marketing their farms as a great place to visit. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell has more from Hilton, New York:
“We all love the outdoors. It’s fun it’s something we can all relax at. Its not far from where we live and we love doing it.”
Brian Camp is in the middle of a 15 acre cornfield with his family and friends. They’re more than half-a-dozen people who drove to this farm in the Town of Hilton. They’re not farmers. They’re here to have a good time wandering through a maze:
“It’s an interactive game right in the middle of mother nature. It’s a 15 acre cornfield that we carved an intricate pattern into.”
Pat Zarpentine and her husband have run Zarpentine farms and its apple orchards for the last 25 years. This year, they’ve been trying out one of the newest tools small farmers are using to keep their land in the family. It’s called “agri-tainment” – packaging a visit to a farm as an experience that people will pay to share.
According to the North American Farmers Direct Marketing Association, more than 400 farms in the United States and Canada are making money by turning at least part of their land into entertainment ventures. Charles Touchette is the association’s Executive Director:
“This is becoming very big. Especially in what we call direct farm marketing, where the people are encouraged to come to the farm directly or the farmer.”
The fall hayride at Zarpentine Farms circles land that’s been in the family since 1832. But today, the farm is under pressure from the expanding Rochester, New York suburbs. Foundations are being dug for new homes just a few hundred yards up the road.
Pat Zarpentine says she and her husband have been watching the Town of Hilton change:
“We’ve seen other people having to sell off lots and parcels to survive. But we wanted to hold onto this. There’s such a strong tradition here.”
Zarpentine Farms already sells directly to customers through a farm market. Pat Zarpentine says the family wanted something that would draw new customers, but be in touch with their farming heritage.
Some farmers have put in paint ball courses or motocross tracks. But the Zarpentine family found their answer through a Utah-based company called “The Maize” – that designs and cuts intricate mazes in cornfields:
“We deliberately chose a big maze. We wanted it so we could have the design so you couldn’t see from one path to the next path.”
The corn towers above your head in the maze and the wind rustles the stalks. You walk on beaten-earth paths, and follow clues in the form of riddles that can help you find the exit.
After about 45 minutes in the maze, 14-year-old Owen Camp and Shannon Popowich say it’s a good way to spend a Saturday:
“It’s a good way to spend a day…like when you have all day!”
Zarpentine Farms charges seven dollars a head for adults to wander through the corn maze. Pat Zarpentine says her family’s first experiment with agri-tainment hasn’t actually turned a profit. But she says the visitors have definitely boosted sales at her farm market, and the maze attracts the right people:
“We get a lot of families. It’s a good outing. It’s wholesome, a great time for family to come together and spend quality time enjoying the outdoors in a setting where most families don’t ever get an opportunity.”
Agri-tainment is a growing business. Charles Touchette of the Farmers Direct Marketing Association says it’s driven by a desire for some Americans to get back to their roots:
“It used to be a generation or two ago everybody knew their grandparents farm. Now that’s not the case – that’s three and four generations ago. It’s unique, it’s a novelty to most Americans yet it’s something that’s still in our blood – seeing some green grass and enjoying a favorite season.”
Touchette says there are no reliable numbers yet on how many farms in the U.S. are offering “agri-tourism,” but it’s growing aggressively as people start to appreciate farms at a different level. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bud Lowell.
Senator Robert F. Bennett blocked the nomination of David Hayes as the Deputy Interior Secretary (Photo courtesy of the US Senate)