Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Farmers Respond to Peer Pressure

  • Farming is big business in America's heartland. Many farmers say they want to be left alone to run their farms the way they always have - and they don't want government regulators or researchers dictating to them. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Farm pollution is the biggest water contamination problem in the
nation. But government agencies often struggle with getting farmers to
use less polluting farming methods. Many farmers say they don’t want
outsiders telling them what to do. Rebecca Williams reports one
grassroots project is trying to encourage farmers to change, by relying
on peer pressure:

Transcript

Farm pollution is the biggest water contamination problem in the
nation. But government agencies often struggle with getting farmers to
use less polluting farming methods. Many farmers say they don’t want
outsiders telling them what to do. Rebecca Williams reports one
grassroots project is trying to encourage farmers to change, by relying
on peer pressure:


(Sound of birds and buzzing insects)


The corn around here is way over knee high, and there’s a whole lot of
it. This is Iowa, after all. So, pretty much everyone farms corn and
soybeans.


But there isn’t as much farming happening today. Dozens of farmers are
hanging out by a creek that meanders through farmland. They’re
checking out the day’s catch.


(Sound of splashing around in bucket)


“Now there’s one really bright-colored southern red belly in here, kind
of the prettiest fish we’ve got in this stretch.”


Biologist Dan Kirby just used an electroshocker. It stuns the fish and
they float to the top of the water. Now that he can see them, he can
get an idea of how many fish there are and how big they are. The
farmers are watching closely.


(Farmer:) “That’s a real good sign to see them that big, at this
point?”


(Kirby:) “Yeah, especially the southern red belly – they do classify
them a little bit different, they consider them to be a sensitive
species, so it’s a good thing to have them there at that adult size,
for sure.”


That’s better news than they might’ve been expecting. This creek
running along many of the farmers’ fields is in trouble. It’s on
Iowa’s impaired waters list. In this case, that means the fish and
other aquatic life in the creek are not doing as well as they should
be.


“In some of these streams we have had some rough times. Chronic issues
where fish were not even getting to size they could catch them or else
were just plain absent.”


Dan Kirby says farm pollution such as excess fertilizer and soil
erosion from farm fields can harm fish and other stream life. That’s
the kind of thing that put this creek on the government’s watch list
three years ago.


One of the farmers, Jeff Pape, remembers hearing about that. For him it was a big
red flag:


“We knew there was an impaired waterway and it was running through some
of the land I rent and obviously I don’t want that to shine on me… I
didn’t want the DNR – not that they would or have the time to do
it, but I didn’t want them to come in and say hey, you will be doing
this, or you will be doing that.”


Pape says the fear of being dictated to by the government was a strong
motivator for him and a few of his neighbors. In late 2004, Pape
formed a watershed council with nine of his farming neighbors.


Now there are nearly 50 farmers in the group. Pape says there are some ground
rules: No finger pointing. And everyone gets equal say:


“That’s nice with this group – nobody’s telling them they have to do
anything – they do what they want when they want and that’s it. You
know, they don’t do any more than they want to.”


Pape says he’s proud of what he and his neighbors have gotten done.
They’re installing grass strips along ditches and creeks to filter
water rushing off fields. They’re putting in fences to keep cattle
from tearing up stream beds and banks. They’re being more careful
about how much fertilizer they apply.


Maybe most importantly, they’ve gotten a lot of their neighbors to join
them. Jeff Pape says cash incentives help – farmers are paid for the
conservation projects they do. It’s not as much money as some of the
government’s conservation programs, but it keeps the government out of
their hair.


Pape says this program works because there’s an even stronger
motivation:


“That guy’s looking over your fence – he sees you ain’t got a waterway
and you’re thinking about it, so that peer pressure thing does make a
difference too. You know everybody’s watching each other in this
watershed – not pointing fingers at nobody but everybody’s watching
each other and that keeps people on their toes – they want things to
look right, too.”


Other farmers here agree that a farmer-to-farmer project is going to be
much more effective than anything government regulators or researchers
say.


John Rodecap is with Iowa State University Extension Service. He’s
been helping these farmers clean up the creek. He says it’s remarkable
that more than half of the farmers in this 23,000-acre watershed have
signed on.


“The trials that they do, they talk about it at their coffee shop, they
talk about it over the fence… If the trial’s done 50, 60, 100 miles
away, that’s not good enough. They want to know how it’s gonna work on
my farm.”


Rodecap says if you see your neighbor making a change first, you’re
going to feel a little more comfortable giving it a try yourself. And
knowing your neighbor’s watching you over the fence… that’s a powerful
incentive all its own.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Paying for Ponds to Stem Farm Runoff

  • Alan Roberson's pond traps sediment. Before the pond was built, silt washed into a creek and caused problems farther downstream. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Since the dust bowl days of the 1930s Depression, the government has been working with farmers to reduce erosion. Today, soil conservation is better. But fields still lose a lot of topsoil because not all farmers use the best conservation methods. Dirt is washed away by rain. That silt clogs up streams, rivers and lakes. But one region is trying to intercept the silt before it gets to the river system. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Since the dust bowl days of the 1930s Depression, the government has been working with
farmers to reduce erosion. Today, soil conservation is better. But fields still lose a lot of
topsoil because not all farmers use the best conservation methods. Dirt is washed away
by rain. That silt clogs up streams, rivers and lakes. But one region is trying to intercept
the silt before it gets to the river system. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:


Farm fields in all or part of 38 states drain into the Mississippi River. Some of the
tributaries of the Mississippi are so silted that dredges have to operate around the clock to keep river
shipping lanes open.


The Sangamon River in central Illinois is not big enough for shipping cargo, but it does
run into the man-made Decatur Lake. The city of Decatur gets its water from that lake
and often has to dredge it to keep the water inlets from clogging up.


Keith Alexander is the Director of Water Management for the city of Decatur, Illinois.
He says a little soil erosion on enough farms adds up:


“And the drainage area that runs into the lake is 925 square miles of some of the world’s
best topsoil. We have literally a half-a-million acres of corn and soybean fields that flow
into our lake that we use for drinking water purposes.”


Not only does the silt clog the lake, it also carries fertilizers and pesticides with it,
polluting the lake. The city has offered farmers financial incentives to reduce soil
erosion. But it hasn’t gotten enough participation from farmers to solve the problem. So,
the City of Decatur decided to try another approach. They would offer money to landowners to build ponds. Those ponds would be located in key drainage areas next
to farm fields.


Shannon Allen is a watershed specialist with the Macon County Soil and Water
Conservation District. He says it turned out to be a pretty popular program:


“The landowners wanted it for recreational purposes, obviously fish, maybe swimming
or whatever. We’re putting them in so we can collect sediment from the farm fields
above them so they don’t go into the river system.”


Shannon Allen says the ponds work a lot better at keeping silt out of creeks and rivers and lakes
than other methods to reduce erosion.


“Basically ponds collect 90% of the silt. And, so anytime you can put up a pond, you’re
doing better than a grassed waterway or a terrace that don’t reduce sediment loads by that
much.”


The city offers up to 5,000 dollars to landowners, but that’s well short of the actual cost. A typical pond
can cost 20 to 25,000 dollars to build. But landowners have been taking the city’s offer.


Alan Roberson owns a few acres at the bottom of a sloping corn field. About 42 acres
drains onto his property and then into a creek. He says when he moved there, there was
just a big ditch where stormwater from the neighboring farm fields washed a bigger and
bigger gully, carrying sediment to the creek:


“There was places eight, ten feet deep. We’ve lived here almost 20 years and it just kept
getting deeper as it went along. I hated to even come down here and look at it because it
was getting so bad. So, I’m glad that program came along to take care of it. As you can
see, it’s not doing that anymore.”


Roberson took advantage of the city’s pond program. Where the gully used to be, a carpet
of green lawn now borders a picturesque little pond.


Alan Roberson says the pond has a pipe in the bottom of it, kind of like a bathtub plug. It
was part of the design required to get the matching funds from the city. When the pond
fills up with silt, Roberson will be able to drain it and dig out the soil:


(Sound of water trickling)


“See this valve down here? You can actually pull that up. It could very well be 20 years
from now they’ll get enough silt in here where a person will have to bring it down. But
like I said, it’s designed to do that.”


That silt is some of the richest dirt in the corn belt and could be sold back to farmers or
used for gardens or flower beds. The landowner will have to pay the cost of digging it
out, but it’s that much more silt that won’t have to be dredged from the lakes or the rivers
that feed them, where people get their public water supply.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Call to End Sewage Overflow Into Lakes

An Illinois Congressman says all cities should follow
Chicago’s example and end sewage system overflows into the
Great Lakes. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

An Illinois Congressman say all cities should follow Chicago’s
example and end sewage system overflows into the Great Lakes. The GLRC’s
Tracy Samilton reports:


Many cities in the Great Lakes watershed have aging sewage systems that
can’t cope with heavy rains. That can result in untreated sewage being
dumped into the Great Lakes.


Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk says Milwaukee dumps a billion gallons of
untreated sewage into Lake Michigan every year. But he says cities in Indiana
and Michigan have also dumped sewage into the Lake. Kirk has co-authored a bill
that would give all cities in a Great Lakes watershed twenty years to fix problems.
After that, they’d would face fines of 100 thousand dollars a day per incident.


“The dumping of raw fecal matter into the lake, the alarming rise in beach closings…
20 years from now, that should all be part of our past and not our future.”


In the meantime, the bill would also require cities to let the public know
when they dump sewage into the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

Dam Removal’s Balancing Act

  • The continued operation of hydroelectric dams will be up for debate in the next decade. Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is looking to remove the Boardman River dam in northern Michigan. This dam removal could impact how all future dam removals are completed. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

The Army Corps of Engineers is tackling a dam removal project that could affect how the Corps approaches future dam removals. In the next decade, communities will be deciding whether to keep operating tens of thousands of hydroelectric dams on rivers across the country. This project is significant because it involves several dams being taken out of production along the same stretch of river. The GLRC’s Bob Allen reports:

Transcript

The Army Corps of Engineers is tackling a dam removal project that
could affect how the Corps approaches future dam removals. In the next
decade, communities will be deciding whether to keep operating tens of
thousands of hydroelectric dams on rivers across the country. This
project is significant because it involves several dams being taken out of
production along the same stretch of river. The GLRC’s Bob Allen
reports:


(Sound of water)


The Boardman River is beautiful. It winds and turns and tumbles
through forested hillsides and passes along northern cedar swamps.
Sections of the upper river qualify as a blue ribbon trout stream, but a
series of dams along the lower half of the river changed some of the best
river water.


Steve Largent has worked on repairing damaged banks along the
Boardman for the last fifteen years. He says removing the dams will
restore faster flowing sections of the river, and clearing out the sand and
silt built up behind the dams will be good for trout and other critters.


“The sediment that is building up in the back of Brown Bridge pond
continues to move upstream as it fills in the upper end of the pond it’s
aggregrating upstream. It’s moving upstream further and further destroying
habitat further upstream.”


So a free running river will help wash away that sediment, but these days
it’s not just anglers who are interested in the Boardman River. Recently
river engineers have been drawn to the Boardman like trout to a fly
fisherman’s lure. They’re interested in landing the job of studying the
Boardman River and its dams. The million dollar study will look at
whether to keep or tear down three hydroelectric dams along a 17 mile stretch of river in northern Michigan just before it flows into Lake
Michigan.


Craig Fischenich is a research engineer with the Army Corps of
Engineers. He says the potential to remove three dams along the same
stretch of river is not something you’re going to find anywhere else.


“Whereas in many parts of the country they’re removing individual dams, they’re on systems that have other dams on them, and so this is an
opportunity here to actually try to restore an entire watershed.”


Fischenich says taking out the dams would mean improvements for
native fish. But there are risks too. If the dams go, invasive species
such as the parasitic sea lamprey could get upriver, and introduced
species such as steelhead and salmon could swim into the river and
compete with the native fish.


That prospect doesn’t exactly thrill John Wyrus, who lives on the
Boardman. He’d rather see some kind of obstacle down near the mouth
of the river to prevent introduced species from entering.


“So that these steelhead and salmon can’t get up the river. I would just
like to see it a brown trout and brook trout fishery.”


That’s the kind of scenario the study of the Boardman River would
consider.


(Sound of people talking)


Recently a lot of the engineers vying to do the study gathered at a
conference put together by the Corps of Engineers.


Gordon Ferguson works for ENSER Corporation. His company
is one of a dozen that submitted bids to land the study.


“This is a particularly interesting project because it involves a lot of
complex issues both from an engineering standpoint and also local
community issues. Property rights issues of homeowners along the
watershed.”


What they learn from the Boardman could be important to communities
near rivers across the nation.


Many of the tens of thousands of dams across the country are aging, and
in coming years, just like on the Boardman River, those with hydroelectric generating stations will need to be upgraded to keep their operating license.


The local utility says the dams on the Boardman don’t generate
enough power to make it worth fixing them. So they’re giving up the
licenses to generate electricity. Ownership of the dams reverts to the
local governments, and local officials are asking the Army Corps of
Engineers to pay for the study of the Boardman. The federal agency is
eager to be involved in this project.


The Boardman River study offers a chance for researchers to figure out
how to count less tangible values. Like how removing dams will affect
other wildlife such as eagles and osprey along the river.


Jock Coyngham is an ecologist for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Typically, he says, wildlife and recreation get discounted in this kind of
study because it’s easier to quantify things like hydropower, but it’s
important to figure out what value they have.


“If you make all your resource decisions as a state and as a country over
a long period of time pretty soon there won’t be any substantial fish
populations, any wild reproduction. Just because traditional cost-benefit
analysis tends to underestimate those ecosystem services and values, let
alone aesthetics.”


The Army Corps is waiting final approval for funding. Once given the
OK, the study of the Boardman River and its dams… could very well lay
the groundwork for other dam removals around the country.


For the GLRC, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Coastal Development Pressures

  • Construction along the shorelines can put a strain on natural systems. (Photo by Carole Swinehart/Michigan Sea Grant Extension)

One of the more subtle but relentless threats to the Great Lakes is
coastal development. Condos, ever larger and nicer beach homes
and buildings and parking lots in the watershed all have an
impact on the Lakes. As the population grows and the suburban
lifestyle keeps spreading, the health of the lakes is compromised
in countless tiny ways. Reporter Peter Payette finds those tiny
ways all add up:

Transcript

We’re continuing our look at ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’
Lester Graham is our guide through the series. He says the
experts who were surveyed to determine the threats say rapid
development is among the problems affecting the lakes:


One of the more subtle but relentless threats to the Great Lakes is
coastal development. Condos, ever larger and nicer beach homes
and buildings and parking lots in the watershed all have an
impact on the Lakes. As the population grows and the suburban
lifestyle keeps spreading, the health of the lakes is compromised
in countless tiny ways. Reporter Peter Payette finds those tiny
ways all add up:


Greg Reisig is standing at the edge of a 20-acre construction site
just down the street from the shore Lake Michigan.


Below him is a man-made pond a few hundred feet long. It was a
dry summer around here, but the pond is full.


In fact, Reisig says the water level is always the same.


“And that indicates there’s a lot of ground water flowing
here…there’s a lot of water in this pond and you can see what
was a whole big wetland complex…there’s a lot of cedar and red
osier dogwood…all the wetland plants.”


There are no wetlands here now.


The site in northern Michigan was excavated for homes a few
years ago.


But now the Army Corps of Engineers says the wetlands that
were here need to be restored. A few acres likely will be
restored. But Reisig says almost the whole site was wetlands
once. He expects it will soon be a subdivision with not much
more than a drainage ditch connecting it to Lake Michigan.


“What will that do to the amount of flow of water going into the
bay? Because of hard road surfaces, hard driveways, roofs,
buildings and supposedly fertilized lawns. What will happen to
the water and how will that increase the flow to the bay?”


The developer’s attorney says this is nonsense. Matt Vermetten
says this land was heavily farmed and mined for clay.


“There are pockets of quote unquote wetland and those are there
because of excavation for clay. So is this a wetland complex of
the nature we speak of when we typically speak of such a thing? I
think not.”


Disputes like this are becoming more common around the Great
Lakes. John Nelson is the baykeeper with the Grand Traverse
Bay Watershed Center. The bay off Lake Michigan and attracts a
lot of people. But Nelson says development doesn’t have to be a
problem.


He says the problem is people don’t think about the ecology of
the lakes. For example, east of Traverse City, Michigan, resorts
dominate the coastline. Along the beach, thick stands of sedges
and rushes extend out a few hundred feet. But the sections of
dark green marsh alternate with stretches of clean sand and white
lawn chairs.


(birds calling on beach)


Nelson grew up here and says this part of the lake was never a
sugar sand beach.


“They’ve located in a coastal marsh. Instead of celebrating and
dealing with that they’ve chosen to see it as they would like to
have it and then change it.”


The impacts of the changes are cumulative. Fish and wildlife
habitat is fragmented. The natural filtering properties of the
wetlands are gone.


So every time the city gets a rain shower all the dust and grime
and pollution are washed right into the lake.


Census data show people are leaving many of the Great Lakes
coastal cities and spreading out along the coastline. But it’s not
clear how local governments should plan for the growth.


Mike Klepinger studies land use planning for the Michigan Sea
Grant program. He says it’s hard to make direct connections
between a healthy lake and particular land uses.


“We are getting more planning along the shoreline than we had
thirty years ago in the state. The number of counties and number
of townships that have a plan has gone up, for example. But we
don’t know whether those plans are really doing any good.”


And it’s hard to implement good planning on a broad basis. In
any area, dozens of different local governments might have
independent control over development.


Multiply that by the number cities, townships and counties along
the coasts of the Great Lakes… and it’s hard to see how it all can
be managed so that enough coastline habitat is preserved.


For the GLRC, I’m Peter Payette.

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New Study Shows Long Term Effects of Fertilizers

  • A new study states that it may take longer than previously thought for a lake to recover from phosphorus buildup. (Photo by Jere Kibler)

A new study suggests the build-up of phosphorus in lakes may cause problems for hundreds of years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Transcript

A new study suggests the build-up of phosphorus in lakes may cause problems
for hundreds of years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:


Many farmers and other landowners use phosphorus-rich fertilizers on their property, but when the chemical runs off into lakes and streams, it can lead to algae blooms, depletion of oxygen, and fish
kills.


New research says it can take decades or hundreds of years for phosphorus to cycle out of a watershed. University of Wisconsin – Madison Professor Stephen Carpenter did the study. He says the effects won’t be as long-lasting if more phosphorus controls are put in place.


“For example we could develop more buffer strips, restore more wetlands, move point sources away from streams and lakes and maybe even innovate new technologies for keeping phosphorus on the
land.”


Farm groups say many of their members are trying to reduce soil erosion and chemical runoff. Carpenter says that’s true, but he says in some watersheds, much stronger action is needed.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Region’s Forest Cover Growing

  • Forestland along the shore of Lake Superior. According to a new report, the amount of forests in the Great Lakes basin is increasing, but the researchers have yet to determine the quality of these forests. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Great Lakes National Program Office)

This week, researchers, government agencies, industry, and environmental groups are meeting in Toronto to try to assess the overall environmental health of the Great Lakes. The gathering is known as the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports, the group says there’s good news about the amount of forestland in the region:

Transcript

This week, researchers, government agencies, industry, and environmental
groups are meeting in Toronto to try to assess the overall environmental
health of the Great Lakes. The gathering is known as the State of the Lakes
Ecosystem Conference. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush
reports, the group says there’s good news about the amount of forestland in
the region:


The report prepared for this year’s conference says there is more forestland
in the Great Lakes Basin when comparing recent data to data collected more than
a decade ago. The report’s authors say forestland now covers a little over half
of the basin’s total land.


Constance Carpenter is with the U.S. Forest Service. She helped develop the report.
She says forests are crucial to maintaining the environmental health of the Lakes.


“They do a lot of things in terms of water quality. They’re able to provide conditions
that really contribute to watershed health in terms of, you know, moderating flood peaks,
storing water, filtering pollutants, transforming chemicals, all those things.”


Carpenter says one of the reasons forestland is increasing is because fewer people are
farming. She says as people leave behind fields and pasturelands, those lands often
convert back to forestland. The authors caution that their data did not look at whether
these forests are near lakes and streams, where their influence on the overall health of
the Lakes is greatest.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

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Glassing Bottled Water’s Image

  • While your bottle of water may depict this... (Photo by Ian Britton)

Over the past ten years, sales of bottled water have tripled. There’s a huge thirst for water that’s pure, clean and conveniently packaged. As part of the ongoing series, “Your Choice, Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner takes a look at why we’re turning to bottled water and whether it’s worth the price:

Transcript

Over the past ten years, sales of bottled water have tripled. There’s
a huge thirst for water that’s pure, clean and conveniently packaged.
As part of the ongoing series, “Your Choice, Your Planet,” the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner takes a look at why we’re
turning to bottled water and whether it’s worth the price:


On a warm sunny day, it’s easy to believe that sales of bottled water
are skyrocketing. People everywhere in this waterfront park in
Toronto are carrying plastic water bottles labeled with pictures of
glaciers and mountains. With a price tag of anywhere from fifty
cents to over a dollar a bottle, that’s a lot of profit flowing to
the companies that sell it.


But Catherine Crockett and Colin Hinz are packing water the old-
fashioned way. They don’t buy bottled water. Instead, they fill up
their own bottle before they leave home and refill it at the drinking
fountain.


Crockett: “Well, it’s cheaper and as an environmentalist, I’d rather
refill a container than waste a lot of money on pre-filled stuff that
isn’t necessarily any better than Toronto tap water. What’s the
point in paying a dollar for a disposable bottle full of what’s
probably filtered tap water anyway?”


Hinz: “Personally I think a lot of what’s behind bottled water is
marketing and I don’t really buy into that very well.”


Colin Hinz’s suspicions are shared by Paul Muldoon, the Executive
Director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association. His
organization has done a lot of research on water issues. He says the
reality often doesn’t live up to the image that companies have tried
to cultivate.


“There’s no doubt in my mind that when a person buys bottled water at
the cost they pay for it, they’re expecting some sort of pristine 200
year-old water that’s from some mountain range that’s never
been touched or explored by humans, and that the sip of water they’re
getting is water that is so pure that it’s never seen the infringement
of modern society. In reality, pollution’s everywhere and there are
very few sources of water that has been untouched by human intervention
in some way, shape or form.”


Environmentalists say it’s not always clear what you’re getting when
you look at the label on an average bottle of water. First of all,
it’s hard to tell by looking at the label what the source of the
water is. In many cases, it comes from rural areas just outside of
major cities. It can even be ordinary tap water which has been
refiltered. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does set maximum
levels of contaminants, and some labeling requirements as well. But
they don’t regulate water which is bottled and sold in the same
state. That’s one of the reasons critics of the bottled water
industry say the standards for tap water are at least as stringent,
and often even higher than for packaged water.


Lynda Lukasic is Executive Director with Environment Hamilton, an
environmental advocacy group in Ontario. She still has confidence in
tap water, despite the fact that the water supply in a neighborhood
in Hamilton was recently shut down because of the threat of
contamination.


“I think we’d all be better to focus on ‘what is the water
supply like in the place that we’re in?’ and ensuring that we’re
offering people who live in communities safe, affordable sources of
drinking water. And going the route of bottled water does a few
things. It creates problems in exporting bottled water out of
certain watersheds when maybe that’s not what we want to see
happening. But there’s also a price tag attached to bottled water.”


Paul Muldoon of the Canadian Environmental Law Association says there
are other costs associated with bottled water that can’t be measured
in dollars.


“Some of the costs of bottled water include the transportation of water
itself, and certainly there’s local impacts. There are many residents
who are now neighbors to water facilities with truck traffic and all
that kind of stuff. There’s also the issue of bottling itself. You’ve
now got containers, hundreds of thousands… millions of them probably.
So there is the whole notion of cost, which have to be dealt with and
put into the equation.”


There are many things to take into account when you pick up a bottle
of water. You can think about the cost and whether or not there are
better ways of spending your dollar. You might think about
convenience. And whether the added convenience is worth the price. Ask
yourself what you’re really getting. Read the label to find out
where the water comes from and consider whether it’s any better than
what comes out of your tap.


The bottom line is, be an informed consumer. And keep in mind that
the choices aren’t as crystal clear as the kind of water you want to
drink.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.

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