The Environment Show #431, 1998 March 31

This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty and
mystery of life in all its forms. I'm Peter Burley. Coming up, Energy Secretary Pena describes
the administration plan for deregulating the electricity monopoly. Will it improve the
environment? Fires continue to rage in the Amazon. It will take nature a century to restore
the damage. A green tip on making your toilet more efficient. Professor and author Richard
Nunley celebrates the arrival of spring in New England, and songbirds are migrating across
the Gulf of Mexico and needed Texas. These stories and more coming up on the Environment Show.
Last week, Federico Pena, U.S. Secretary of Energy, announced a program which if enacted by Congress
would establish the ground rules under which the generation and marketing of electricity in the
United States would be deregulated. This means as consumers, we'll be able to select which company
we wish to buy our electricity from. Presumably, competing companies will offer different prices.
The process will work the same way it does with long distance telephone service under which we
choose from competing companies like AT&T, Sprint, MCI and others. D-regulation is already underway
in some states including California and Massachusetts. Since power generation is one of the largest
sources of air pollution, restructuring the industry can have a huge impact on the environment.
Secretary Pena says the Clinton administration is trying to bring competition to the last part of
the economy which functions as a monopoly. If this is done, consumer savings are estimated at $20
billion a year or $232 for a family of four, an amount equivalent to a 5% reduction in income tax
for many. Pena says the plan will also help the environment. We caught up with him in Moscow where he is
cheering a meeting of the energy ministers. Well, we believe that our proposal to the Congress will
reduce both carbon dioxide emissions which is very important to global climate change and also
clarify authority for the EPA to deal with nitrogen oxide. The reason that will happen is because with
more competition, companies are going to use new technologies and operate their own
facilities much more efficiently if they want to compete. And when they do that, they're going to
reduce their own use of energy and that will help clean up the environment. Secondly, by opening
up markets in states, companies that now use clean technologies will, for the first time, have the
ability to go into, for example, California and offer clean technologies or green energy to
consumers for purchase. Thirdly, we're recommending a special fund for the benefit of the public
about a $3 billion fund which will be used to assist low-income citizens, invest in research and
development and support renewable energy sources. We're also going to require that by the year 2010,
5.5 percent of all electricity sold in the country be solar or wind or biomass or some other
non-hydroelectric renewable form of energy. Some environmentalists say the plan will not do enough
to achieve the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that the United States agreed to at the Kyoto
conference last December. Alden Meyer, government relations director for the Union of Concerned
Scientists comment. It will have a marginal impact on carbon dioxide emissions, the principal
greenhouse gas. The administration estimates about 25 to 40 million tonne reduction in CO2 emissions
below the base case by 2010 to put that in perspective that's somewhere around 3 percent of where
emissions are expected to be that year. And of course, we need to get probably over a 30 percent
reduction to meet the target we signed into in Kyoto. While environmentalist Myers thinks the
energy deregulation plan should have included mandatory limits for carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide
emissions, Robert Beck, vice president for environmental affairs of the Edison Electric Institute in
Washington, which is a trade association for investor owned utilities, is very glad that the plan
does not. We're pleased to see that there is no effort to mandate any kinds of controls on
greenhouse gases. We think that for sure this is not the end of that debate, but we're very pleased
to see that the electric utility industry as an individual industry was not singled out on that
issue. We think that it involves far more than than the industry and we are certainly willing to
do our share to try to control greenhouse gas emissions and we're already committed to many
voluntary programs to do so. But we think that if they would have included it in this particular
legislative package, that would have been a mistake. So we're pleased at that.
Deer regulation, whether currently enacted by individual states or in accordance with the
new federal proposal, gives consumers the ability to buy power from non-polluting sources.
For this reason, environmentalist Jim Marston from the Texas Office of the Environmental Defense
Fund says the Clinton proposal, if enacted, can have a tremendous impact.
It would require whenever a company solicits a consumer or builds a consumer to have a disclosure
that looks a lot like a food label, it would have two types of information that I think consumers
can understand. Number one, it would break down the generation by power source. So what's that
would say 50 percent of this power comes from coal, 25 percent from natural gas, maybe 25 percent from
wind or some other different mix, maybe it's 100 percent from wind. So immediately the consumer
can know quickly what is the original source of the power. And I have to tell you that in the long
term, I have more confidence in American consumers picking green power than I do electric utility
executors that are regulated by weak public utility commissions. Whether or not the Clinton
guidelines for energy deregulation are enacted by Congress, the process is underway in many states.
This means you will be able to select your energy supplier and consider both the environmental
and pocket-pocked impacts when you turn on the lights. I'm Peter Burley.
An international effort is underway to slow the fires that are destroying parts of the
Amazon forest. So far, the fires have destroyed an estimated two million acres,
and with little rain predicted, more critical land will be lost. In the first of a two-part series
on the Amazon forest, the environment shows Stephen Westcott reports. Researchers are blaming El Nino
for the droughts in Australia, Indonesia and South America. The normally wet, lush,
tropical areas of Brazil's Amazon rainforest are extremely dry, and when indigenous people
tried clearing areas by setting fires, the fires took off. Janet Abramowitz, a senior researcher
at the World Watch Institute in Washington, D.C., has been closely following the fires that began in
January. She says respiratory problems and damage to immune systems are just two of the effects
people in wildlife are experiencing. The fire has also spread many miles into the reserve of the
Yanomami Indians, who are the largest remaining Stone Age tribe, and it's telling the wildlife and
the crops that they live on and drying up their water sources as well. As you know, the Yanomami
fought long and hard to get their reserve established, and in the past it's been
invaded by miners and settlers, and now it's being invaded by the fires.
Abramowitz says the villagers are also losing livestock, and airports and schools are closing.
In addition, critical wildlife and forests that service habitat are being lost.
Efforts are underway to try to control the fires, but Abramowitz says the Brazilian government
is ill-prepared for such disasters. She says neighbors are trying to help.
My understanding is that they have now rented some firefighting helicopters
from some Venezuelan oil firms, and they're putting these into action. But
part of the problem, of course, too, is because there's a drought in the area,
getting water to fight the fires, whether it's water by helicopter or water by ground crews,
is very difficult. So far, hundreds of firefighters from Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil have
joined the effort. Janet Abramowitz says the fires are the result of the Brazilian government
encouraging road building, mining, ranching, farming, and log clearing. While the same things could
be said about the United States government and its handling of federal lands, the difference
here is that the Amazon rainforest is not fire-dependent. This means that it does not need fire
to spur new growth. Furthermore, the rainforest grows at a slower rate than fire-dependent forest
areas. Experts are estimating that it will take 100 years to replenish that which has been
lost already in Brazil. This decline of the Amazon rainforest has been an ongoing process,
according to Janet Abramowitz. What we've been seeing every year since the early 90s,
when the fires in the Brazilian Amazon really captured the world's attention,
since then the area deforested each year has tripled. And so far, over 12 percent of the
Amazon has been directly deforested with an equal amount damaged by activities like selective
logging and ground fires that aren't picked up by satellite. Abramowitz says small fires like the
ones in Indonesia and South America are examples of local devastation that is slowly depleting forest
areas. She says local devastation is a major reason why half of the forest areas that once covered
the Earth are now gone and says Brazil is partly to blame. In just the last 15 years, Brazil has
accounted for one quarter of all the world's deforestation. That's an enormous loss to the global
community. And beyond the obvious impacts of lost timber and lost livelihoods and lost
homelands and so forth, we're also now seeing a new phenomenon, which is that because of
cutting and burning, the world's forests now add more carbon to the atmosphere than they absorb.
This is really a recent and radical shift in their functioning. And in fact, cutting and burning forests
now contributes up to one quarter of all the carbon that's added to the atmosphere by human activity.
Many fear the continuing loss of forest areas is increasing the potentially dangerous effects of
global warming. Janet Abramowitz says Brazil's deforestation accounts for about 10 percent
of all greenhouse gas emissions globally. Climate change is the bigger issue. However, to those
battling the fires, those losing their crops and resources and the animals losing habitat
rain is the biggest immediate concern in their fight for survival. Whether forecasters say it will
be the end of this month before significant precipitation falls in this area. For the Environment Show,
I'm Stephen West God. Next week, we'll look at a program designed to monitor the Amazon
forest in hopes of slowing its decline. This is the Environment Show at I'm Peter Burley.
The Environment Show is a national production. It's made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation,
the Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the JM Kaplan Fund, the Oliver S. and Jenny R. Donaldson
Charitable Trust, the William Bingham Foundation and Heming's Motor news, the monthly Bible of the
Collector Carhovy, 1-800-CAR-HRE. If you have thoughts about how your electric company could
help the Environment, give us a call. Our number is 1-888-49-Green. That's 1-888-49-Green.
Email is green at wamc.org. Green at wamc.org.
This is Green Tips. Tips on how you can save the world in your everyday life. The modern toilet is
probably one of the most cherished conveniences today. Yet the commode is also guilty of wasting
large amounts of an important natural resource, water, but you don't have to take it sitting down.
In his book Drinking Water, refreshing answers to all your questions. James Simon's offers ways
you can conserve water in the john. One way is to place a heavy object in the tank. Simon says
don't use a brick, which can break apart. Use a large jar. Secondly, toilets can leak.
To check this, put a little food coloring in the tank and wait 15 minutes. If the color shows up
in the bowl, get it fixed. New federal regulations require that any toilets now installed must be
ultra low flow. Meaning they use 1.5 or 1.6 gallons as opposed to the older models that used about
4 times that. If you have the extra money, replace your old commode. It will save water.
Lastly, don't use your toilet as a garbage can. Gallons and gallons of water are wasted by people
flushing a single tissue. That's Green Tips for this week. Spring is here. In the northeastern
United States, it brings relief from a long gray winter. In this essay, Richard Nunley,
English professor at Berkshire Community College in Western Massachusetts, describes the promise
of renewal that comes with the season. Here in the northeast, sidearial spring can overtake us
before we notice. The other morning, after a week or more of dark days, when we came downstairs,
my wife looked at the clock and said, is it really only 6.45? It's so light out. We thought the
clock had gotten slow, but no, it was right. Because of the prolonged spell of gloomy weather,
we had just not noticed the hours of daylight had already lengthened. The sun was gilding the
hill tops across the valley, and the snowy landscape glowed faint blue in the clear early light,
as if illumined from within. Sidearial spring was imminent, even though the gray, frozen ground,
and the whore frost rhyming every twig and weed stalk gave no hint that seasonal spring
was waiting in the wings to make her entrance. Or rather, the hints were there, waiting for us to
perk up and notice them. Where the snow had evaporated by the House Foundation, the first rubbery
spears of chives had emerged, and on protected south-facing banks, snow drops had poked up,
sometimes through a ring of ice, their tight-class, quite buds ready to open at the first touch of sun.
Inside, potatoes in the bin were beginning to sprout, and windowsill geraniums were getting greener
and throwing up dozens of new buds. Outside, broken branch ends of maples began to bleed sap when
the sun struck them, and downhill in the swamp we noticed the pussy-wheels were out, the capkins
like chalk dots all over the untidy bushes. On the hillside, springs were flowing, the clear
water sometimes gurgling out from a rock-ledged like a miracle. Father into the swamp,
where black old pines had tempered the winter, the first skunk cabbage were showing bright green
by the dark water. Life is stirring, and with it a new spirit, the spirit the Roman poet Lucretius
invoked as Alma Venus, the nourishing spirit of love at the beginning of his long poem,
De Rérum Naturam, on the nature of things. Here are his opening lines as translated by the British
poet Basil Bunting. Darling of gods and men, beneath the gliding stars, you fill rich earth and
buoyant sea with your presence. For every living thing achieves its life through you,
rises and sees the sun. For you the sky is clear, the tempest still.
Death's earth scatters her gentle flowers, the level ocean laughs, the softened heavens glow
with generous light for you. In the first days of spring, when the untrammeled, all renewing
south wind blows, the birds exalt in you and herald your coming. Then the shy cattle leap and swim
the brooks for love. Everywhere through all seas, mountains and waterfalls, love caresses all
heart and kindles all creatures to ordained renewals. Therefore, since you alone control the
sum of things and nothing without you comes forth into the light and nothing beautiful or glorious
can be without you, Alma Venus, with your grace, give peace to right and read and think.
That was English professor Richard Nunley with some thoughts on spring in New England.
And now it's time for the earth calendar. Right now, songbirds are migrating along the Texas Gulf Coast.
The Clive Rommel's family, Mad Island, Marsh Preserve, a 7,000 acre plus refuge located about
halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi is one of the many rest areas Burridge used during their
trip north. Jim Bergen is the coastal protection field representative for the nature,
Conservancy and Texas, which runs the preserve. He says more than 300 species of birds come through
the refuge. You know, I'd have to say we have a pretty good number of, oh let's say,
blue-growspeaks, we get some fairly good numbers of blue-growspeaks that come through every year.
We also, unusual for the coast, we do get some prairie warblers that come through and that we have
banded before. We get both summer tannagers and scarlet tannagers that come through.
We also get very large numbers of indigo buntings that come through and we band a good number of
those. But terms of our overall banded species in the spring, I think that list is probably
close to about 70, 75 species right now.
Bergen says orals, white-eyed virios, as well as hinslow and sharp-tailed sparrows stop at the
Mad Island preserve. The rare green-violet-eared hummingbird more commonly seen in the Caribbean has
also been spotted. Jim Bergen says the various species take different routes on their northern migration.
But in general, many of the birds begin the trip from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
These are birds that basically they worked their way up along the entire coastline of from Mexico
up to the Laguna Madre and then basically utilize habitats right in the near-shore areas.
And before they move up some of the main river systems like the Colorado River, the Sabine River,
and then even move up to the Mississippi River Valley and move north to where they are going to end up
nesting and spending the summer.
Bergen says while it depends on the species, most of the birds don't stay long in the marsh.
He adds that some arrive in better condition than others because of the effects of a weather
phenomenon known as fallout.
That's where birds are making their way across the Gulf of Mexico and if they have a
we have a frontal boundary that comes down and basically from the north and we get a good
north wind blowing. A lot of these species that are coming across the Gulf basically fall
out of the sky and into whatever cover they can find because they're really extremely fatigued
and worn out trying to fight that north wind. Sometimes if you have a good southerly flow,
a lot of times the birds will actually overshoot the coast and then land in forest and habitat
just north of the immediate coastline. Besides playing an important ecological role,
Bergen says songbirds bring in thousands of dollars to local communities that hold festivals
dedicated to the various species. Folk from elsewhere sometimes say Texas is for the birds.
Well maybe they're right. If you weigh a few ounces and fly nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico,
I'll bet any land looks great. Thanks for listening. This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley.
What ever happened to the life that we once
have been doing.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. Still ahead. A commentary on
the love canal 20 years later. What impact has it had on the way we deal with toxic waste?
We talk green about how you can buy green electricity in California and other states that are
taking apart their utility monopolies. And we meet a group that has gone to the dogs.
Prairie dogs that is. They're trying to preserve both the dogs as well as their peri ecosystem. Stay with us.
This is the Environment Show's Stephen Westcott. 1998 marks the 20th anniversary of the love canal
disaster in Niagara Falls and Western New York State. At that time, Environment Show host Peter
Burley was Commissioner of New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation. He has this
commentary on what happened and what we may have learned if anything from this environmental fiasco.
20 years ago at the request of local residents, I went to the love canal in Niagara Falls, New York.
The old canal had been filled in largely with boxes and barrels of toxic chemicals that had been
discarded by the Hooker Chemical Company over a couple of decades. Some dirt had been dumped
on top to bring the old canal bed up to the level of surrounding backyards. But children playing
in pedestrian use had worn the dirt away and in spots revealing puddles of black goo that turned
out to be 55 gallon drums whose tops had corroded away leaving their contents exposed.
Dogs tied in backyards, budding up against the old canal bed were missing patches of hair,
exposing raw blotches of skin about the size of a baseball. The red-brown dirt of the school yard
that was situated over one portion of the canal was punctuated with white rectangles that turned
out to be the hardened contents of varied boxes whose tops had worn off. I kicked a fragment
loose with my heel and sent it to the state laboratory. It turned out to be pure lindame, a chemical
which causes liver and kidney damage and which the EPA says should not exceed two tenths parts per
billion in drinking water. We took some air samples from sellers of houses next to the canal.
That basement air turned out to contain benzene at 100 times the actionable level.
The entire area had a pervasive chemical smell which residents say they got used to. It was offensive
to the unconditioned visitor. Shortly thereafter, Chris Beck, the regional director for the US
Environmental Protection Agency and I went to the White House and as a result, President Carter
declared the love canal a disaster area. The first time that emergency response mechanism had
been triggered by a human cause event rather than a natural one like a tornado or a flood.
The love canal sent forces in motion which produced results worth noting 20 years later.
The best known was an act of an comprehensive environmental response compensation and liability
act otherwise known as superfund. Superfund is complicated and before its implementing regulations
were modified over the last decade, lawsuits seemed as numerous as cleanups.
Based on the concept that the polluter should pay, superfund imposes joint and several liability.
That means that everybody that puts toxic waste in a dump potentially can be held responsible
for funding the entire cleanup. This means a contributor of 20% of the waste could be forced to
pay 100% of removing. Industry leaders and insurance companies complain bitterly.
They say joint and several liability does not serve to make them more careful about where their
waste goes. I don't believe them. Some of the argue we should convert superfund into a public
works program run by the Corps of Engineers. That may sound appealing but it shifts liability
from the polluters to you and me. Through attacks on chemical feed stocks, superfund is put
millions of dollars into a superfund to pay for cleanups if responsible parties cannot be found.
The law also enables recovery of natural resource damage caused by the toxic dumping.
The citizens of love canal taught that no cleanups should go forward without the support of
a community that has to live with a result. Funding community groups to hire experts and
participating clean up planning and monitoring is now a standard part of a superfund process.
And so 20 years after the love canal crisis, about 1200 toxic waste sites have been discovered
and put on the national priorities list. Cleanup is finished at just over 500.
But we have developed the tools to deal with them. We've changed the economics so producing lesser
no waste is the only cost effective commercial strategy. And communities play a significant role
in planning clean up and monitoring. Every game has emerged from contentious struggles between
government bureaucraties, citizen groups, industry leaders, health scientists, and the insurance industry.
Many well-paid lobbyists are working relentlessly now to weaken the law in this session of Congress.
We should be farther along, but the forces that have gotten us as far as we are were conceived in
that place where love was replaced with fear and anxiety and the canal was buried under tons of
poison. I'm Peter Burley.
We're talking green and I'm Peter Burley. Today we're talking about electric utility deregulation,
and specifically the process now underway in both California and Massachusetts by which you'll
be able to pick the company that supplies your electricity. And this is much like the process
now in place with respect to telephone service. And this may provide consumers the opportunity to
buy power which is generated from environmentally clean or renewable resources such as wind or solar.
And it also may give the consumer the opportunity not to buy power from caller nuclear plants,
for example. Is this a good idea? Will it work? We'd like to know what you think. Give us a call.
Our number is 1-888-49-Green. My guest today are Doug Long and he is manager of electrical
restructuring for the California Public Utility Commission which has just put this process in place.
And Kevin Hartley. Kevin is vice president for marketing for green mountain energy resources.
And that's an energy company which is based in Vermont. But it is offering environmentally friendly
energy in the California market. So Doug Long from the California Commission, let's start with you.
If I live in California and I want to buy electricity from renewable sources, how do I do it?
Well it's really quite easy. There are a number of companies now offering residential service that
are claiming to be renewable. There are a couple programs that certify renewable. For example,
the National Resources Defense Council has just released a list of six offerings that they say are
good and clean and meet their criteria for being renewable. Green Mountain by the way is one of
those six. California has a long history with renewable power. In fact, 11% of our power is
already from renewable sources. So we think with opening competition and retail sales, we're going to
see a lot of people trying to increase that percentage and make personal decisions to go green.
So Kevin Hartley from the Vermont Green Mountain power company, how do you, how does a company
based in Vermont sell renewable energy generated power in California? Actually, it's a pretty,
what Doug was just talking about, the deregulating of the California and eventually national energy
businesses, really exciting. Here's how it works from a consumer choice standpoint. Let's say a
California customer uses $60 worth of electricity in a given month from the power pool. They,
because of electricity choice, now get to determine what types of power plants run to replenish the
grid and exactly the amount that they use. So as you pointed out in the opening, they can now in fact
pick wind power, solar power, biomass, water, or whatever other kind of generating sources they are
excited about. Now, just before we get into the next step of this, my toaster is not very smart.
It burns the toast half the time. It undercooks at the rest of the time. It's not going to be able to
figure out whether that's green power or not. How does the consumer know that if they buy green power,
that's really what they're getting. Kevin, how do you straighten that one out in California?
The very, well, the first, I think, important point is you made a reference to telephony deregulation,
which is a tremendous comparison. There's one huge difference, however. And it's an air go, the reason
for the show, the choice in telephone and choice in laundry detergent is cool in everything. But
electric utility industry is the largest source of air pollution in the United States, worse than
in auto's. So a consumer's choice here is the largest and most significant environmental
boat they've ever been able to make from their couch. That's a really exciting thing.
Now, California is going to audit and affect the claims of all of the energy retailers to ensure
that they have contracts that support their product claims. And it looks like that's going to be done
annually, I think, Doug, if I'm correct. That's right. And if a retail, this is great from a
consumer protection standpoint. If a retailer has not met their claims, California will revoke their
license and ability to sell energy to residential customers, which is tremendous. So, Doug, how did
you go about putting together the package that you're offering in California? How does an
entrepreneur begin this process? Well, the commission first started looking into
restructuring the industry about four or five years ago. And it's been a fairly laborious process.
Say, legislature got involved and gave us great guidance and authority to continue. Now,
basically what we've said is that we've taken the utilities out of the control of generation,
and we created a Power Pool, which is going to be a wholesale marketplace. But the more important
part, and I think the exciting part, is in what we call direct access, which really means retail
sales. That means customers can directly buy. And so, I think for residential customers, in particular,
you're going to see this choice of being able to directly influence the environment, being a very
strong one. You ask how that measures or track. And what it literally means is, no matter how dumb
your poor toaster is, when you sign up with a company like Green Mountain or the other two or
three in California that are green, at the moment, according to the National Resource Defense Council,
what happens is they have to say where their power comes from. It goes into the transmission
system. It's accounted for and billed. And we audit that later to make sure that in fact, they met
the mix that they promised of wind or geothermal. And that assures that if you use a certain amount
of energy, that equivalent amount of energy entered into the system, it's like pouring water into a
big drum and taking water out of the bottom. You know, you can't control which drops you get back,
but you can certainly control what kind of drops go in. And that's a great explanation because I
think a lot of people have trouble visualizing this because electricity is not something they see
in the bucket. Let me ask you where your power, your green power comes from or that you're putting
into the grid to supply California. That's of me, I assume. Yes. We have three electricity blends that
we're offering all designed to be drastically cleaner than generic California electricity.
The first product is wind for the future and that includes California and Western small scale
renewable facilities plus new wind turbines. Our 75% renewable blend consists of small scale hydro,
biomass and geothermal. Then we have a water power product which is primarily larger scale hydroelectric
facilities. That's neat. So that you've got it all broken down and then do you own these facilities
that generate this stuff for you and affect by it from whoever owns the dam or the windmill?
Absolutely the latter. We buy from people who own and make electricity of this type.
And do you have a lot of smaller generators or these mostly big enterprises that do this?
Today it's pretty interesting mix actually. Now let's talk about price. How do you
Kevin, how does your green power compare with other stuff on the market? Doug, I'd like to hear
from you about how much variation you're seeing in price on the California market. So Kevin,
let's start with you. What does your power cost in comparison to ordinary, dirty electric power?
Yeah, generic electric power. We now have branded in generic electricity.
Californians as the result of the legislation get a 10% reduction in their electric bill that
started in for usage in January. Three products that I just talked about. The over that already
reduced rate, the water power cost about 7% more. There were 75% renewable power costs about 10% more.
The wind for the future costs about 12% more. So for the average Californian, that range
translates to monthly variance in your bill of between five to seven dollars.
But as I understand it, there was a 10% reduction that went in when the restructuring took place.
Correct. So in effect, you can buy green power at least today in California and come out about
where you are now before the savings. Is that a fair assessment? That's 100% true with our pricing.
That's right. Now the other cool thing about that pricing, of course, is one of the neat parts
about deregulation is we hopefully can align the market economy with eco values in this hugely
polluting industry. And we believe that if consumers vote for their checkbook and stand up and say,
we believe in cleaner electricity, then technology and everything will be unleashed into figuring out
how to make that cleaner electricity more cheaply. That's what's so exciting about this movement.
And Doug from the California Public Commission, what are you finding in terms of prices that are
now being offered to California consumers? Are there big variations in price?
Well, we expect there will be some. Now you have to consider that there's really two major markets.
There's the large industrial market. And what those companies are interested in is usually just price.
And they are usually entering into relatively long-term arrangements. And in fact, the pricing aspect
of this regulation change is now completely free market. We have no control over what a large
corporation chooses to pay or what a large generation supplier chooses to charge a large customer.
The only portion of our market where we still have some oversight is in the residential and small
commercial. And in fact, even there, our concern isn't how much they're charging, but how
how accurate and how fair they are in their consumer dealings and in their disclosures.
So for example, as long as wind for the future tells you precisely how they're pricing their product.
And that you understand what you're paying. And you understand that it may or may not be a premium
on top of your bill if you stay put. Then that meets our test. And that's a good thing because we want
the consumers to make an informed choice. The renewable products that are being offered from a number
of companies based on the information they're putting out, they're all in a relatively similar range.
But what they do is they vary according to the type of product they're offering. So we've just
heard about three different green mountain versions of different energy mixes. And there's a couple
of others. And one of the important issues too is because California already has so much existing
renewable power, 11% of our power is renewable already. One of the important concerns is that there
be an emphasis on new renewables. And so for example, Kevin just mentioned their one product is geared
to have 10% new renewables. And Kevin, I think there's a measure in there that for every 3,000
customers that equates to essentially one more wind turbine being built. Is that right?
Correct. Correct. And it looks like we'll announce the first one based on customer choice in a
couple of weeks. Let me ask you both something. D-regulation is now beginning to ripple across the
country. I think Massachusetts has now got it. Do you foresee this process being pretty much similar
in all of the states as we go forward? Well, I think so. That this process of giving the
consumer the choice and having the procedures that you described replicated elsewhere.
Well, I certainly think so. The California model has been looked at closely by a number of other
states. You mentioned Massachusetts, but New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New Hampshire are well on
their way. And what effect does the proposed Clinton administration plan, which also recently
released, have on this whole process, if any? Well, I think that shows the national trend is
therefore wanting some change. In fact, it follows on top of several bills that have been in the US
Congress for the last several years. Congressman Schaeffer has had a bill. And his bill in the past two
sessions has been one of saying we want to have all consumers to have a choice and wanting to have
it by a certain date. And so this is the administration's response. And when you look at their response,
it talks about the important things. It has an element in there for emission reductions and for
renewable products. And it has an element of choice that will open the market to innovation.
In theory, this then should be good both for the environment and the consumer. In the last
moments left to us, is there any hitch to this? Well, the hitch is of course the transition from
an existing monopoly structure. And so there are transition costs. But Kevin, do you want to add
something here? I would say that the big hitch is not so much a hitch, but responsibility we now
all jointly share. You have never, ever, ever as a consumer been able to take responsibility for
your air, for your electricity purchases. And we have an industry that's the largest source of air
pollution in the world. We now have, it's a caveat emptor now. I mean, we have the power to change
that. This is extremely exciting in California. And we just really look forward to having a vibrant
green-oriented national energy category that was never able to exist before.
Okay, on that note, that is really exciting. I'm afraid our time is up. We've been discussing how
consumers will be able to buy electricity from renewable births orissues in the age of utility
deregulation, which is now begun in California and a few other states. My guests have been dug long
from the California Public Utility Commission. And Kevin Hartley, vice president of marketing of
the Green Mountain Energy Resources Company, which is selling green power in California.
So we'd like to know what you think about marketing and buying green electricity. Our number is
1-888-49-Green. We've been talking green and I'm Peter Burley.
Listen to the Environment Show anytime on your personal computer over the internet.
Our address is www.enn.com-slash-env-show.
This is Eard to the Ground with stories about people affecting change in the environment.
This week, protecting the keystone species of the prairie system.
The historical range of the prairie dog once extended along the Rocky Mountains from Canada to
Mexico. Millions of the little football-sized rodents played a key role in the prairie ecosystem
that Paula Martin, director of prairie ecosystem conservation alliance, describes as having once
been the serengeti of North America. Bison, pronghorn deer, elk and antelope,
grazed side by side with the prairie dog. Today, she says over 163 species alone are found within
prairie dog towns, some of which are completely dependent on the existence of the prairie dog.
What they are, they're obviously a prey base for everything from raptors to coyotes to
the most endangered mammal on earth, which is the Blackfoot of Ferret. The Blackfoot of Ferret
prey is exclusively on prairie dogs pretty much, about 98% of their diet is prairie dogs, and they
also live in their burrows. They also create homes or shelter for other species like burrowing
owls. Burrowing owls can't live without prairie dogs because that's their home. You'll find all
kinds of other rodents living in their burrows like rabbits and 13-line ground squirrels,
several species of mice. There's all kinds of toads and salamanders and interesting things
that live in their burrow. Peca was formed in 1993 by people like Martin who feel a sense of urgency
about the rapid destruction of our prairie system. They take action to protect the survival of the
prairie dog in a number of ways, through education of the public, legislative activity, and relocation.
Martin says that ranchers and development pose the greatest threat to the rodents. Bulldozer,
she says, smother and maim unimaginable numbers of prairie dogs on a daily basis. Strict nine
and poisonous gases are also used, she adds, to eradicate them, causing slow and gruesome deaths.
That's why members of Peca spend almost every weekend trying to save and relocate prairie dogs.
So essentially what we're doing is taking them from little three corners, you know, 12 acre sites
or whatever and putting them into their native ecosystem where they can thrive and expand and develop
on their own. Our primary method of doing this is called flushing. It's something that a lot of
people feel apprehensive about, like it might drown them, what have you, but if it's properly done,
we have such a high survival rate that we can't even describe it.
The way flushing works, Martin continues, is a hose is used to guide a mix of water and biodegradable
soap down into the burrow. Prairie dog burrow is not just a straight tunnel. They have several
rooms and chambers up away from the main tunnel and so when you put in about a quarter to a half
inch of water down the burrow, they're going to run up into those little rooms to escape the water
and then the soap fills up from the water to the top and you wait with your hand totally motionless,
right at the entrance and they climb right out.
Martin says in this way, Peca has successfully reintroduced hundreds of acres of prairie dog towns
to various preserves and state parks and removed thousands and thousands of prairie dogs and other
inhabitants from their burrows. In Colorado, the group is based in Denver, Martin says they work with
almost every large developer along the front range. Peca claims a 96% removal rate with a nearly 100
percent survival rate of prairie dogs in their care. Today, only 1% of the prairie dogs historical
range exists. Prairie ecosystem conservation alliance supports a petition sponsored by
prairie biologists to make the black tail prairie dog, one of five prairie dog species, a candidate
for the Endangered Species Act. Martin says they are also seeking the creation of a short grass prairie
preserve, the only ecosystem that does not have a preserve. And that ecosystem, Martin explains,
is created by the Flora and Fauna associated with the prairie dog. With ear to the ground,
I'm Linda Anderson.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show. I'm Peter Burleague. Order a copy of the tape
so you can deal with the door-to-door green electricity salesman. It's show number 431 for $10.
Write the Environment Show at 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York, 1-2-2-0-6.
The Environment Show is a national production which is solely responsible for its content.
Alan Sharttalk is the executive producer, Steven Westcott is producer, and Ray Graff is audio engineer.
The Environment Show is made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation, the Packard Foundation,
the Turner Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Oliver S. and Jenny R. Donaldson Charitable Trust,
the William Bingham Foundation and Hemings Motor News, the monthly Bible of the collector car hobby,
1-800-CAR-HRE. Be good to the earth and join us next week for the Environment Show.