Hello friends, this is the Environment Show, and welcome.
With President Bush announcing an energy strategy for the nation, legislators and energy
experts will step up the debate and search for new and better ways to generate energy.
We'll take another look at hydro power.
Also, Texas moves aggressively to deal with hazardous wastes.
Governor Richards calls for a moratorium on new sites.
Buck Wynn at the Water Commission says the waste reduction needs to be improved in the
end that will not be enough.
And I will say that we can't just build ourselves out of this crisis.
We just can't build enough facilities to take care of that increase.
So we're going to have to have an aggressive waste production program.
But that isn't going to get us all the way there.
And I think anybody that takes a realistic look at our waste generation numbers will have
to agree with that.
The Environment Show is a national production of WAMC, made possible by the J.M. Kaplan
Fund of New York.
This is Bruce Robertson.
Following her state of the state message early in February, Texas Governor and Richards
sent a letter to the Texas Water Commission ordering an implementation of a temporary ban
on the sighting of new hazardous waste landfills in the state.
This is the first in the union, thus, to react in this way to the problem of hazardous
waste disposal.
We asked Buck Wynn, Chairman of the Water Commission, charged with carrying out the governor's
orders to explain.
Well the governor has heard out on the campaign trail a lot of concern from citizens who live
in areas where hazardous waste disposal facilities have been proposed.
Now as you may or may not know, Texas is the largest hazardous waste generating state
in the country.
We generate more than any other state.
And that's not surprising when you consider that we have 60 percent of the nation's chemical
manufacturing capacity here in Texas and about 25 percent of the nation's petroleum refining
capacity.
And a lot of other heavy industry primarily on our Gulf Coast.
So we have to have facilities to dispose of the waste.
And a lot of facilities have been proposed by private industry.
This is met with fierce opposition in the communities where these facilities are proposed
to be located.
So the governor asked us to place a moratorium on the permitting of these facilities for
a while in order to give her an opportunity to make some proposals to the legislature.
Now she asked us to do it for two years and we felt that we didn't have the legal authority
to do that.
So we basically called a halt to our permitting activities for a few months through June with
an option to extend through September in order to give the legislature a chance to consider
issues like what our capacity needs are going to be, what citing criteria should be changed
if any, and issues like that.
So it's a temporary situation in Texas.
We know we're going to need more hazardous waste management capacity, but the policymakers
want to have an opportunity to review our current program and we agreed to give them that
opportunity.
Last September, the federal environmental protection agency changed the definition of what is considered
hazardous waste.
Suddenly much more now comes under that title.
Suddenly much more needs special treatment.
Already Texas generates over 70 million tons of hazardous material each year.
That amounts to about 200,000 tons a day.
And according to Wynn, under the new EPA guidelines, this amount could be as high as four times
as much.
Even with a temporary ban then on the new facilities, what is going to happen?
I'm hopeful that once the legislature and the governor have had an opportunity to look
in depth at the capacity issue, that they will give us the ability to actually speed up
the permitting process for those facilities that are deemed necessary to take care of
the waste that we generate here in Texas.
We're committed to doing that.
We don't feel that it's appropriate for us to ship our waste to some other state and
have them take care of our problem.
But I'm hopeful that the policymakers will see this as an issue and will address it.
You can be sure that I'll be over at the Capitol urging them to do so.
Mr. Wynn, you have advocated for building more landfills, expanding current ones,
constructing new incinerators and increasing the general overall capacity to handle hazardous waste.
Of course, environmentalists and citizens alike who are addressing under concern about this problem,
many have counter proposals.
Many would like to see waste reduction programs put into place, not the construction of more landfills
and more incinerators.
What is your response to that as a means of addressing this growing issue?
Well, first of all, you need to know that I was the first environmental official in the country
to call for setting a goal of 50 percent waste reduction by 1995.
And so I think I'm firmly on record as believing that waste reduction is the most desirable
means of dealing with hazardous waste and it is our first priority.
But having said that and assuming that we accomplish that very ambitious goal here in Texas,
we're still going to have more hazardous waste than we currently have the capacity to deal with.
If we don't have an adequate hazardous waste management infrastructure,
then what we're going to see is we're going, in addition to the economic impacts on businesses
that are either going to relocate or that aren't going to expand here creating jobs,
we're going to see a lot of illegal dumping, a lot of unsafe waste management practices,
the kinds of things that led us to the point where we now have 29 superfund sites
on the national priority list that we're spending $200 million taxpayer dollars to clean up.
So I don't think that you can fairly argue that waste reduction is going to take care of this
two to fourfold increase in hazardous waste that we now have as a result of the change in the federal definition.
It is an important part of our overall strategy and I will say that we can't just build ourselves out of this crisis.
We just can't build enough facilities to take care of that increase.
So we're going to have to have an aggressive waste reduction program,
but that isn't going to get us all the way there.
And I think anybody that takes a realistic look at our waste generation numbers will have to agree with that.
Buck Winn, chairman of the Texas Water Commission, the commission is responsible for overseeing environmental regulations relating to hazardous and solid waste and water quality.
Texas will be studying new ways to deal with hazardous waste. We will monitor the debate. This is Bruce Robertson.
The rainy season in California is drawing to a close with little to show for it.
Snowfall amounts in the Sierra Mountains reportedly is only a fraction of what it should be.
California is entering the fifth year of a severe drought.
To deal with the problem, the state water project charged with delivering water to municipal, industrial and agricultural projects.
As reduced to 0%, the amount of water delivered to farmers and soon will begin taking a look at all other contracts as well.
The Bureau of Reclamation, the other body handling surface water in the state,
has cut to 25% the water it delivers to agricultural contracts and down to 75% for industrial and municipal concerns.
In addition, many well water and aquifer supplies are also going dry.
Recently, California Governor Wilson issued a suggestion that Californians voluntarily ration water,
something that many communities are already doing either voluntarily or by law.
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley is expected to endorse a plan by the city council to put a ration on the amount
city users take each month and to find those who exceed that amount.
California Congressman Calvin Dooley is a freshman Democrat representing the 17th district,
an area from Bakersfield to Fresno.
It is a region including the top three agricultural producing counties in the nation in terms of agricultural receipts.
The geography of California is such that on the valley floor,
we stretch, which stretches from Sacramento down to Bakersfield.
The rainfall we see is anywhere from 10, well actually it even gets down to about 8 inches annually
in the Bakersfield area which is in the south, up to probably closer to 20 inches in Sacramento.
Fresno which is about the heart of the valley receives an annual rainfall of about 12 inches,
which for all practical purposes the rain that falls on the valley floor is insignificant.
We are blessed with this year on Nevada's which is basically in most years a gigantic reservoir
in that the snow that accumulates there and melts in the summer goes into our rivers and our
lakes and reservoirs which provide us water. That snow pack at this time is only expected to be
just a little over 10% of what it is in a normal year. So the last figure was 13% of normal,
which you know it's obviously just a devastating situation. And for anyone that's flown out from
California just recently, it's an idea a couple days ago. You fly over the top of a basin and it's
just basically brown. There was very little snow accumulated. So how did this situation develop?
We've talked about the decreased in percentage of rainfall and snowpack in the mountains.
The water shortage is certainly brought on by this change of natural precipitation, but what other
conditions have contributed to this? Have there been any, can you say sort of almost a
mismanagement of the current or present natural water reserves?
Well, you know there's a, you know, both the Bureau of Reclamation and the State Water Project,
you have to make some decisions on how they can manage their water supplies. And basically they
utilize a basic quantitative risk analysis. And you have to take a historical perspective on what the
what you're anticipated rainfall will be from year to year. And then you have to try to determine
just what level of reserves is prudent to maintain. And in this instance, it's been difficult
to maintain reserves as we entered into the fifth year of the drought. Yeah, there are some
things that we need to do. And I think this drought should be, if anything, that's called arms,
or you know, to for us to develop a more aggressive water policy for the next century. And then we
need to be looking at ways which we can be better conservers of water and also to look in how we can
find additional water storage facilities and certainly give greater attention to the recharge
of our underground aquifers. Which in effect is a, it's probably one of the most effective water
reservoirs that we have in Central Valley, California. What are going to be some of the
reactions, I guess, or the results for the rest of the nation, the supermarket shelves and the
if this situation at least continues or doesn't make any sharp improvement? Well, California is
produces over 50% of all the fresh fruit and vegetables consumed in the United States.
We're going to see, I think, an increase in price when a lot of the fresh fruits and vegetables.
And what's also, this is being compounded by the freeze which basically destroyed the entire
citrus crop in California, too, or certainly the major part of it. So we're having basically a
double whammy here with the freeze and the drought, which is going to contribute to higher food
prices. It's going to have a ripple effect also in California when you're going to see a large
number of people which are going to be unemployed because of the lost employment opportunities as
a result of the drought. That's going to have a ripple effect, too. My district is already
experiencing close to a 15% unemployment rate. That's more reflective of the freeze that we experience.
But we don't anticipate the situation improving much coming on into the summer months when the
full effect of the drought manifests itself. Finally, Congressman, even if rainfall and snow
fall amounts in the mountains return to normal this spring, summer, and by next winter.
That probably wouldn't make much of a dent immediately. We wouldn't see a reversal within a year
of the drought situation. It would take some time to return. That's correct. We're actually
in California, we're just about out of what is considered our rainy period. Almost all of our
rainfall falls from December to March with January being our wetest month. We cycle through
into the last part of February and we just have March. Then basically, we don't anticipate or
normally expect to get any rain through the bounce of the year until next November.
The situation has got to the point where it's going to take above average rain falls for a
number of years in order to recharge our reservoirs and certainly to recharge our underground
aquifers. The consequences of this also go beyond the agriculture arena and certainly the businesses
that rely upon them and the valley. But our national forests and parks are being dramatically
impacted. There is an estimated 30% loss in the forest in the Tahoe Lake Tahoe basin.
In the Sequoia and Sierra National Parks in my district, they're anticipating over 100 million
boardpeed alumber in each of those has been lost due to the drought. In fact, I was talking to one
of the regional supervisors of the forest there just the other day. He said that our annual timber
yield out of there could be supplied without harvesting one green tree that just by salvage
operations we could generate all the timber that's needed basically for all the mills in the
Central Valley of California. Congressman Calvin Dewey, we thank you very much. Thank you very much.
California Democratic Freshman Congressman Calvin Dewey before coming to Congress this year,
Dewey was a farmer in Southern California specializing in cotton, alfalfa and walnuts. This is Bruce
Robertson.
This spring legislators in Washington will be grappling with a powerful issue, power, energy,
from where and at what cost. Elaine Evans is Executive Director of the National Hydropower
Association and Advocacy Organization representing owners and operators in the legislative
and regulatory process. It's our oldest form of electricity. It's the safest form of electrical
generation that we know of. How much of the nation's total energy needs presently come from
hydropower? Hydro-used for electrical generation which is its primary activity is around 10 to
12 percent. And in megawatts how much would that be? It's around 88,000 megawatts.
And how about step down to kilowatt? So try to get a handle on how many, for example,
how many private homes might be powered by that? Oh, there's been multi-million of customers.
I think 42 percent of the power in the west is hydro.
Now the question follows on that is that's how much we presently are using. How much could we be?
We could in theory double our hydro contribution and push it up to close to 25 percent.
Realistically we could add maybe 20, 25,000 megawatts of power which is equivalent to 20
nuclear power plants at existing dams by adding drain holes in the bottom of a lot of dams
where we already have reservoirs and lakes and no powerhouses. So it is possible to add significant
amounts of power at existing facilities and we have a lot of undeveloped sites as well.
Now undeveloped meaning places where dams could be built? Places where dams could be built,
water could be diverted into streams. We also have the ability for off what we call off stream
pump storage for peaking which means two reservoirs that are closed loop and it's like having two
washing machines one on the top of the hill and the other on the bottom of the hill and they
just pump water back and forth up and down the hill instead of using gas or oil for that power we
need at dinner time and in the early morning they call that peaking power. We could use hydro power
pump those back up and down give us that kind of supply. All right now there right away there are
several questions that pop up that we've referred to right here that go under the heading of what
are some of the roadblocks to developing further our nations reliance on hydro power and there are
different categories I suppose technological roadblocks, political roadblocks and environmental
roadblocks and you've touched on some of the possible routes we need to develop and build more dams
we can divert more rivers and this pumping the off peak pumping procedure. Damns being built in
many environmentalists will say uh-uh. Well Mark Twain said with these for drinking and waters
for fighting over everybody wants water for their favorite activity. Some think that water should
only be used for recreation but they want to rate pairs to pay for it. One group of users wants
hydro projects to dump millions of dollars worth of water over a dam so a few of them can go rafting.
You've got other groups who are concerned about nature who want the animals and the plants to have
natural flooding they believe that dams basically should not be used to protect people in
and property even though people in property have been built on a flood plain various in various
areas. Dan's will be built for flood protection and drinking water. The question is should we put
in a power facility to make use of what is already going to be done to the environment for other
reasons. Our regulations that govern hydro are very complicated. It's more difficult to
cite a hydro facility than it is any other form of energy except nuclear. It may even be that
difficult and that's because everybody is competing. Everybody wants exclusive use of that water.
We've got a balance. Our society may not be able to have it all. So as a society we've got to develop
a process that ensures that fixed income elderly rate pairs are as well represented as young professional
recreationists who want to rafte. So we have a process that right now doesn't do justice to all
the voices of the public. That touches on the political roadblocks to further developing
hydro power as a major source. What would be some of the political roadblocks that you would like
to see lifted? Well I think the issue politically is hard choices. We criticize politicians for not
making hard choices. Nobody wants new development in their backyard. That's probably the single most
critical political reality that we see here in Washington. We need a comprehensive national
energy plan or a war today over oil. If we don't know hydro plants here at home maybe we wouldn't
be fighting in a foreign country together energy. But those decisions are part of who is the public,
who represents the public in the process. If you have Americans showing in a poll that they choose
hydro 42% first. That's their first choice for electrical generation. And yet individual projects
get picked off one by one. It's like you can't see the forest for the trees. The proposal and practice
of pumping water during off peak hours using another fuel such as oil or gas is not entirely without
its problems nor is it a perfect solution either. The question is are we saving fossil fuels if
we're burning them at nighttime instead of the day? Well yes, says Evans. In a utility system you
have a mix of generation and a lot of those big power plants that are what we call base load at night
time can't be ratcheted down efficiently. So that power that's being made available to us during
the day time to burn our hospitals and run our factories at night time can be very efficiently used
to pump power up so that during the day time you don't burn gas or oil for peaking. Gas oil is what
usually is used for peaking power so that they use big base load plants, coal and nuclear to pump
the water up at night time and then it comes down on demand during those busy times in the day.
The political and environmental roadblocks to further development of hydro power are evident
what of technological blocks. Evans says the industry itself is rather mature that is we have the
necessary hardware and know how to pump water to make electricity. However, environmental engineering
is a fairly new science and it's not very exact so that the technological impediments really
fall into doing what is really required for adequate habitat protection, adequate protection
for the fisheries and the industry has spent multimillions of dollars a year on environmental
protection and we're spending that money to ensure that hydro projects are compatible with the
needs of the environment in which they operate. When evaluating hydro as a source for future power,
officials generally acknowledge its importance to a point. Most energy experts believe that the
nation's energy picture will be a composite one. Evans believes hydro has not gotten a fair
shake because of a licensing procedure which requires hydro operators to pay costs up front
before the fact so to speak unlike say a nuclear or a coal-fired plant. Once the other technology
start to pay, they're true environmental impact costs. Then hydro who's been paying all those costs
up front and in today's dollars, when we level the playing field, then you will see people
reevaluating the hydro option. Our licensing process takes five to seven years. The utility
planner doesn't have that kind of horizon in his in his planning. It's it's very difficult for
utility commissions. They have not included all those extra cost of environmental damage into
the price of some of the other technology electrical rates. As a result, hydro you have to pay a
lot of money up front. You build a project, a lot of concrete, but there's no cost to the fuel.
And once the fuel costs start rising, hydro will come back into its own. Elaine Evans, executive
director of the National Hydropower Association advocating for increased reliance on hydro power
for our nation's energy needs. There are many problems, as you might expect and already know,
building a new facility often displaces people, wildlife and plants. Again, the question,
energy at what cost? This is Bruce Robertson. And that is our show for this week. We hope you
enjoyed this edition of the Environment Show. If you know of something happening in your area that
you think we ought to know about, or if you have a question about this week's or any week's
Environment Show, drop us a line. It's the Environment Show WAMC 318 Central Avenue,
Albany, New York 1 2 2 0 6. The Environment Show is a program about the environment, the air,
water, soil, wildlife and people of our common habitat. This has been a WAMC National
Production, Dr. Alan Shartock, executive producer. This is Bruce Robertson. The Environment Show
is made possible by the JM Kaplan Fund of New York.
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