Welcome to the Environment Show, exploring issues and events of the planet.
I'm Thomas Lally.
The Environment Show is a national production made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation,
the furthermore division of the Kaplan Foundation and Hemings Motor news, the monthly Bible
of the Old Car Hobby 1-800-CAR-H-E-R-E.
Your host is Peter Burley.
Thanks, Thomas.
Coming up on this week's Environment Show, folks in conflict are working out arrangements
to restore the environment.
A global settlement may save the Trucky River in Nevada, and bring back the cottonwoods
and the endangered Query Fish.
Communities in conflict over land use learn to talk to each other.
Redeveloping industrial sites or brownfields can reinvigorate cities and save greenfields.
And our Earth calendar is red this week.
It all has to do with trapped sugar.
These stories and more coming up on the Environment Show.
A couple of days ago, a water quality agreement was signed affecting the Trucky River.
The river flows from California to Reno and Sparks, Nevada, and then north into Pyramid Lake.
The trucky has been beset by just about every insult that affects western rivers.
Two states and the Pyramid Lake-Payord Indian Tribe have claims on it.
Starting in 1907, the Bureau of Reclamation diverted about half of it to another drainage
basin.
That caused the 25-mile long winemookica lake to dry up entirely in 1930.
Pyramid Lake itself dropped 80 feet.
Leon's and Trout disappeared, and the Query Fish became endangered.
There's not enough water to keep the river flowing and meet all the demands of recreationists,
irrigators, municipalities, and the needs of wildlife.
Lawsuits have been numerous.
The new agreement settles cases brought by the Pyramid Indian Tribe to limit upstream
discharges and is designed to keep water in the river all year round.
It flows that approximate the natural cycle.
It's summarized by Mike Schultz, who is Associate Director of the San Francisco Office of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Well the agreement is going to accomplish three things in a win-win-win situation that
we're very excited about.
First of all, for the environment, the agreement will help restore dwindling populations of
fish and wildlife.
The second aspect for the communities in Nevada, the agreement means more opportunities for
waiting, swimming, watching the Trekkie River, recreational uses of the river.
This will help the areas tourism economy help riverside redevelopment in the cities
and maintain water deliveries that are crucial to the Nevada farmers' livelihoods.
The third aspect is for the Pyramid Lake Pyramid Tribe, the agreement ends some historic
injustice that began nearly a century ago when the Newlands Act of 1902 and subsequent
water diversion projects disregarded or insufficiently regarded the tribe's need for
water to maintain their ancient fisheries, which had begun uncounted centuries ago.
And now as we near the close of this century, we're moving to write that wrong.
The Department of Interior and the cities of Sparks and Reno, Nevada, will put up $24 million
between them to buy water rights for water that will be stored in upstream reservoirs
and released throughout the dry summer.
In some cases, farmers will get free, treated water from sewage treatment plants if they
sell their rights to river water.
Traditionally, cottonwood and willows grew on the banks and in the repair and carter the
lower reaches of the river.
Outside of the river's carter, it's desert.
Once the river flows were diverted, the cottonwood started to die and no young trees replaced
them.
But then in 1987, a whole crop of new cottonwoods appeared for the first time in 60 years.
Chad Gurley, who is the lower trucky river restoration coordinator for the nature
conservancy, describes what happened.
So the endangered species act required that water be released from stampede reservoir downstream
so that the quay-wee fish could successfully spawn.
When they released water from stampede reservoir, the flow that came down was very similar
to the natural hydrograph or the natural hydrology of the basin.
Because a lot of the organisms that live in the river and along the river have evolved
and adapted to the same hydrologic regimes, it was also flows that were very similar to
the needs of other organisms like cottonwoods.
Therefore, the cottonwoods responded favorably to that in that we had for the first time we
think in about 60 years a very successful cottonwood recruitment.
Gurley says the cottonwood forest on the banks of the river is the foundation of the whole
ecosystem.
It cools the water, stabilizes the banks and provides habitat.
The agreement calls for releases from upstream reservoirs of water that will be purchased
and stored.
This should stop the river from drying up in its lower reaches which pass through the
lands of the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe.
Tribe Chairman Norman Harry is optimistic about the agreement but Mervyn Wright Jr., director
of the Department of Water Resources for the tribe has some strong reservations.
His concern is that Reno and Sparks have permits to dump effluent into the river upstream
of tribal lands.
They retain the right to modify their permits and might increase pollution.
While the tribe is restricted in its right to tighten water quality standards to ensure
cleaner water flows in a Pyramid Lake.
There are conditions in the agreement that calls for a modification of that permit and
that's something that the tribe is very lyriaf and we want to make sure that when modifications
are going to be introduced that the tribe is going to be able to participate and be involved
not to what extent will be dictated by the agreement.
The agreement is written that the tribe and interior will just support whatever modifications
that will be forthcoming that will be introduced to the State Department of Environmental Protection
which doesn't say much for protection itself of the resource, at least from our end of
the deal.
The success of the whole Trucky River Water Quality Agreement depends on whether in the
next five years enough water rights can be bought from willing sellers.
These are needed to provide the water that must be released on a schedule that approximates
what nature did before the river was diverted and damned.
The cottonwoods have shown that given half a chance nature will help the river heal.
The agreement is a product of an effort by the federal government with the help of Nevada
Senator Harry Reid to resolve complicated environmental conflicts through negotiations
with all the stakeholders at once.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burling.
Reach us by email at env.showw.com.
That's env.showw.com.
The Glenwood Center, located on the banks of the Hudson and Coltspring New York, helps communities
plan for their future.
We consider it as part of our continuing ear to the ground series about people and organizations
affecting change in the environment.
A community that qualifies and is selected by Glenwood for their program agrees to host
a multinational team of experts who conduct discussions and recommend strategies to integrate
land use planning, economic development and historic preservation.
Judith Lebel, president of the center, describes how it works.
We bring teams of professionals from several countries into communities to work with people
in the communities who have invited them in and to spend several months preparing for
their arrival to have a series of conversations and tours and workshops, if you will, with
people in the community, to then have the team come back at the end of that week and
share with the community their views, their objective views, and their all outsiders
from some other place as to what the community's real strengths and weaknesses and opportunities
are.
Glenwood's most recent project involved Mono Township
in Canada.
Mono is a small community of 7,000 which is in danger of being swallowed up by neighboring
Toronto.
Glen Gibson, who is the rieve or mayor of the township, describes what happened.
The process itself, even if they had not come up with any recommendations, was really invaluable.
The week that they spent with us and the people that they met in the community and those
that they got talking to one another, perhaps haven't talked to one another for 20 years
and perhaps hope never to talk to one another has been extremely beneficial.
But the recommendations had to do with tourism, they had to do with some conservation issues,
how to grow slow and how to keep what we have and consider to be the most precious to
us.
The way the Glenwood process brought people together leaves a deep impression on everyone
involved.
Another aspect of it is talking to each other.
We have, perhaps a lot of communities become a set of label groups.
We have the newcomers, the old timers, the farmers, the environment lists and so on and
so on.
We all have our own labels and a lot of people use those labels.
I think found through the process and I shouldn't have used that word but I think what we
found through this is that if we talk to each other and if we break down those label groups
we'll find that we all have one common theme and that is that we love our little piece
of land.
That was Keith McNinley, Chief Administrator Officer of the Monotownship.
Members of the international team who are volunteers from Britain, Canada and the United States say
they came away from the Mono Project with insights that will help them and their own activities
back home.
So it appears that the Glenwood Center has a formula for helping communities determine
their future in a way that works.
You're listening to the environment show and I'm Peter Burley, still ahead, developing
brownfields, the challenge and opportunity in our old industrial cities.
We paddle down the Salmon River with Tim Palmer and we turn red with the leaves in New England.
The pattern of development facing most American cities is that of a dying center with growth
at the fringes.
Yet many urban areas have more than enough land to accommodate new growth.
The problem is that often the land is contaminated by industry.
The land can be complicated and expensive but the brownfield movement has raised hopes
that urban land can be reused, bringing needed jobs to city and saving green space in the
country.
Environment show producer Thomas Lalley visited Trenton, New Jersey which has one of the most
advanced brownfield programs in the country.
He has this report.
Residents of Trenton are well acquainted with America's industrial past towards the end
of the last century.
Industries like Steel, Rubber and Ceramics made Trenton a powerhouse.
The old saying was, Trenton makes and the rest of the country takes.
Today most of the factories are closed but the neighborhoods around them remain.
The challenge is how to reuse the factories and clean up the mess they left behind.
In northwest Trenton the rowhouses are less than 100 feet from an abandoned factory.
It's not an uncommon sight.
Nor are the stories neighbors tell about them.
When we would try and sit on our front porches, the gas or whatever, acid was terrible and
it would burn our eyes and it just wasn't comfortable sitting there.
As my wife was saying, when we first moved here, we realized it was a great problem.
James and Louise Rollins moved to Trenton in 1951 to get jobs.
Today plans call for cleaning the site up and using the land for a supermarket and perhaps
housing.
Yolanda Joyner is with a community organization in Trenton called Isles.
Today along with the city are spearheading the redevelopment of so-called brownfield
sites.
She says contamination on the site ranges from bad to legally acceptable.
It's a 7.5 acre site.
It was last occupied by magic market.
Now that's not meant to mean that they are being held responsible for any contamination
just that they were the last tenants.
The site itself has contaminants predominantly in the lead and the ranges anywhere from 200
to 49,000 parts per million.
Now let me give you a sense of what does that mean.
What it means quite simply is that if the site where anywhere from between two and 300
parts per million, you can use it for residential.
The magic marker site represents just one of hundreds of brownfield sites being studied
across the country.
Clean up here is now in its advanced stages, but that doesn't mean it's almost cleaned
up.
There's still a long way to go.
The concept of brownfields is so new that the details are still being worked out.
Right now the real action in brownfields is trying to figure out how to do it economically
and thoroughly.
One hurdle is technology.
At Magic Marker a traditional cleanup would mean digging up and hauling away the contaminated
soil.
But a new and much cheaper technology called phytoromediation is being tested.
Michael Blalock is with phytotec, the company overseeing the cleanup.
They've planted Indian mustard plants which suck up the lead.
This is the fourth crop now and it takes up the lead out of the soil and into the shoots,
into the leaves and we harvest the leaves and they can be disposed of as you know to remove
the lead from the site.
The main reason that most sites have not been cleaned up is because it costs too much.
So if we can reduce the cost to clean up a site that enables us to clean up more sites
for the same amount of money.
Another problem faced by cities is figuring out who will pay for brownfields cleanup.
Most brownfields aren't worth much to begin with and investors face the additional problem
of liability for the contamination.
Investigation is the only way to reduce the cost of the cleanup.
A few lenders have been willing to take that risk.
Charles Barch is with the Northeast Midwest Institute.
He says Congress has approved new language which specifies when lenders are liable and
when they are not.
He says this should encourage more cleanups.
Financing remains the real key issue in many cases with respect to getting brownfields
back online.
The bottom line on a lot of the financing issues is there is just a real concern that
the sites are not worth the loans that they are made on.
Many Trenton residents believe the seven companies which have owned the Magic Marker site since
1914 should foot the bill for cleanup.
But Barch says that's often not possible even though legally the former owners are responsible.
It just takes a lot of time and you know a lot of money to pursue all those owners.
Again when the law bumps up against reality on some of these sites that really makes those
sites very uncompetitive with respect to less contaminated or greenfield sites out in the
fire suburban or rural areas.
The city of Trenton knows this all too well.
They found that it's cheaper to do the work themselves than go after the companies.
They've secured state and federal funding instead to first test the sites and then look
for private investors.
By doing what the private sector won't, Trenton has attracted private money.
Officials here say it's either that or let the sites remain contaminated and undeveloped.
The hope is that if the public sector gets the ball rolling, the private sector will follow.
Alan Malik is the director of housing and development for the city of Trenton.
He says the city sees brownfield redevelopment as a new life for Trenton.
We don't look at a site as a environmental cleanup problem.
We look at a site as a redevelopment opportunity.
Nine out of ten times the environmental cleanup problems turn out to be very manageable if
you see them in the context of having a rational ultimate goal.
The promise of brownfield's redevelopment is changing Trenton.
The Launda Joyner from Isles says communities once consigned to live next to toxic sites
are now active members in redesigning their neighborhoods.
Today the magic marker site still looks a lot like it did seven years ago when the company
left, but the community around it has changed and eventually it's hope that Trenton, once
the vanguard of industry, will become a leader in sustainable communities flushed with
plenty of clean land.
For the Environment Show, I'm Thomas Lalley.
We all have places that are special to us.
For some it's a city block, for others it's a place deep in the wilderness.
Tim Palmer, author of America by Rivers, published by Island Press, takes us for a paddle
to his special place, the Salmon River in Idaho.
I launched my raft in the Salmon River and from the moment I pushed off shore and atmosphere
of clear water streaked and scratched by currents swept me effortlessly away through a mountain
canyon corridor.
The sky was crisp and puffed with clouds, the forest scented with sun-warmed resin of
fur, whitewater glittered and begged to be drank and the mountains towered over me.
My spirit soared to be a part of it all and to be so entwined with the flow bound away
toward hundreds of miles of Rocky Mountain River adventure.
I traveled slowly to Saver such wondrous country.
Furs and lodge poles were dying out in drylands filled with orange cliffs, golden eagles,
and reverberating thunderstorms.
After one week I stopped at the town of Salmon and bought more food.
For the first 125 miles of my trip, a paved road followed the river, though it was not
visible much at the time.
At the north fork of the Salmon, Highway 93 continued north, but the Salmon veered west,
with only a dirt road etched into the narrowing valley.
Here the bigger drops began.
In the pull-up pinecreek rapid, a tongue of smooth water, green and shiny as mint jelly,
pointed down between rocks, until foam and waves pinched the green shut and the bubbles
converged to white out conditions.
I entered right of center.
My route led toward an enormous hole where the river scoured a rock, then dug out a low
spot before it billowed into the next wave.
I hit the hole and heavy waves crashed over the bow, but I shot through.
The days of summer drifted by, and I dropped into dark, wild canyons, which had heavier
rapids now that the middle fork had joined the main stem.
The upper salmon had shown me a satisfying beauty, alive with bird life and without another
single bowder, but the road had intruded.
Now the highway and everything that went with it receded behind me.
The river of no return wilderness and so far bitter-root wilderness nearly joined here,
and are two of the four largest roadless complexes in the country outside Alaska.
In another two weeks, autumn had come to the salmon.
With it, I thought a new zest, a mildly pressing urgency, is the calendar inevitably
termed in the days shortened, no matter how tightly I clung to them.
Fall is a nostalgic time for me.
I thought of other autumn trips I had taken, and the friends I had taken them with.
The showering leaves of October sparked me to take stock of a lifetime that, like each
year, is too short.
Finally at the town of Asoton, no more ripples brushed the shore, and no more current pushed
me along.
Buzzing and droning, five motorboats were aimed my way.
For six weeks I had floated past the mountains of eight ranges, deep and spacious forests,
practiced dotted deserts, and gorges of blue-black rock, but now my river lays silent in flat water
behind a dam.
I rode through several miles of stagnant water to the Marina at Lewiston.
Below that city lay four snake river reservoirs, and four Columbia River reservoirs, linked
nonstop almost to sea level.
I had come to the end of the free-flowing river.
Tim Palmer is author of America by Rivers.
Fall foliage is at its peak in much of New England.
It's time for the Earth Calendar.
There have been hard frosts.
Daylight hours are shortening in the yellows and reds of the maples against the clear blue
sky create the memories that sustain new Englanders through the long-grey mud season that
comes after the snow and before the spring.
With less daylight, the trees can't make enough food with their leaves to sustain themselves,
so they start to shut down.
Bob Cardero, forest steward at the New York Botanical Gardens tells us where the color comes
from.
The yellows and oranges are actually colors that are always there in the leaf.
They're there all year round, but they're just masked during the growing season by chlorophyll.
And in the fall as the weather starts to change and cool off, and the days become shorter,
the chlorophyll starts to degrade and these yellows and oranges start to come through.
And that's where the yellow and orange come from.
The red colors happen as the tree starts to shut down.
It forms a cell layer that cuts the leaf off from the tree.
And if sugars get trapped in the leaf, as the sugar degrades, it turns red.
And so the best fall has usually happened when you have nice, sunny, clear days and cold
nights, and that seems to make the cell layer form quickly and trap more sugars in the
leaf.
I've always wondered why so many New England barns are red, especially the ones you see
in the pictures with a brilliant fall foliage in the background.
It must be because they're the places where the farmers store their maple sugar, and like
the trees, the trapped sugar turns them red.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show.
I'm Peter Burling.
For cassette copy of the program, call 1-800-323-9262 and ask for show number 354.
The Environment Show is a presentation of national productions which is solely responsible
for its content.
Dr. Ellen Shartuck is the executive producer, Thomas Lalley is producer, and Stephanie Goichman
is the associate producer.
The Environment Show is made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation, the furthermore
division of the Kaplan Foundation, and Heming's Motor News, the monthly Bible of the
Old Car Hopping 1-800-C-A-R-H-E-R-E.
So long and join us next week for the Environment Show.
