Jennifer Bowles, environmental reporter for the Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, swept the environmental category in this year’s Society of Professional Journalists Inland Southern California chapter awards, taking first, second and third-place wins. Bowles won best environmental story for “Regulators on Location,” an article on the steps movie and commercial productions have to take when shooting in the California desert to limit impact to the fragile environment. Second place went to Bowles’ story “Taking root and taking over,” about the detrimental impacts of invasive plants’ incursion into the California desert. The third-place award was for a story Bowles co-wrote with Lys Mendez called “Septic Tank Turmoil.” The article examined the health impacts of overburdened septic tanks in a working-class community and how pollution from the tanks is traveling down to affect a well-to-do enclave, as well as what a proposed ban on septic tanks in the region would mean for the area.
Elizabeth Bluemink has been writing about the impacts of global warming on Alaska’s Southeast Panhandle in her position as environment reporter for the capital city’s Juneau Empire. Among the observable effects is a decline in yellow cedar in the Tongass National Forest due to reduced snow pack. Bluemink led and co-authored a major project released in August 2005 for the Society of Environmental Journalists’ First Amendment Committee that looked at how the federal government has put up blockades to reporters’ FOIA requests since 2001. The project included a survey of some 50 SEJ members and has received national press coverage. Bluemink also received second-place awards from the Alaska Press Club in 2005 and 2006.
Christine Shenot recently became a project manager at the International City/County Management Association in Washington, D.C., a professional association whose members are local government managers. Her group works on a variety of research and professional development initiatives around particular issues. For Shenot, that has largely involved smart growth, drawing on her experience in her prior post with the State of Maryland where she had worked in the Office of Smart Growth since 2002. Much of her current work involves communications, but her group also puts together training and professional development programs, Webcasts, conference sessions and other endeavors. Her current e-mail address is cshenot@icma.org.
Thursday, June 1, 2006
In a Flap Over Bird Flu
By Felicia Russell
“I can say with near certainty that there will be a flu epidemic next year,” Dr. Sam Bozzette, an infectious disease researcher, declared at the Conference on World Affairs.
Bozzette is a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, and a medical professor at the University of California San Diego. His current research focuses on HIV/AIDS, but he spoke to an audience of about 50 people in the University Memorial Center at a Thursday afternoon lecture called “Duck!!! It’s the Bird Flu!”
Somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people will die in next year’s flu epidemic, said Bozzette. But, this is normal. Every year there is a seasonal flu epidemic, an outbreak that affects a large number of people at the same time. In 2005, 313 people in Denver died from influenza and pneumonia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The avian flu is different. This family of viruses is found widely in birds and is very deadly to humans, but hasn’t “learned” how to easily attach itself to the human respiratory tract, said Bozzette.
Worldwide, there have been only 194 confirmed cases of the bird flu in humans, but more than half of the people infected have died from the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
Most of the people who became ill caught the virus from an infected bird or its excrement, said Bozzette. Currently, the virus does not readily spread from one person to another.
However, if the human flu virus and avian flu virus infect the same animal and exchange genetic information, the bird flu may learn how to infect people, he said. Then the bird flu could easily pass from one person to the next.
Scientists and doctors are concerned that the avian flu will become pandemic, infecting people worldwide and jumping easily from person to person.
Will Styler, a CU junior, came to the lecture to learn how he can protect himself if there is a pandemic. Styler lives on-campus in Baker Hall and says that he’s seen how quickly other sicknesses have moved through the student body. He particularly remembers two years ago when a nasty stomach virus kept students hovering over toilets for days.
“I literally watched it walk down the hall,” Styler said.
During the question and answer period, Styler asked Bozzette how students living in the dorms could protect themselves.
Bozzette said that people in communal living settings should avoid any unnecessary social contact such as visiting other dorms. And, everyone, regardless of their living situation, should wash their hands often, he said.
“Sooner or later there is going to be a pandemic,” Bozzette said. “There is going to be another flu pandemic.”
When there is a pandemic it will likely last for four or five months like the 1918 flu pandemic, he said.
“There’s no question that relatively early in a serious outbreak, the healthcare system will be overwhelmed,” Bozzette said.
He recommended that people stock up on household goods in the event of a pandemic so that they can avoid frequent exposure to possible carriers of the avian flu.
“You will encounter people who look perfectly well who are shedding the flu virus,” Bozzette said. Therefore, it’s best to avoid contact with other people as much as possible.
Scientists aren’t sure exactly how the flu virus is spread. Studies indicate that the flu may be passed by touch, virus-carrying droplets from a cough or sneeze, or small particles in the air capable of traveling long distances, Bozzette said.
Bozzette said that more funding and research is needed to help scientists understand how the flu is passed from person to person. This type of knowledge will help communities stockpile the right types of supplies to combat an outbreak.
For example, if the virus is passed in droplets, then a standard medical face mask will be sufficient. However, if the virus moves on small particles through the air a more sophisticated mask will be necessary.
Unfortunately, some things like hospital beds, flu vaccine and face masks may be in short supply.
“We don’t have a lot of things you’d want to have if there were a pandemic,” Bozzette said. “It seems that immunization and cutting down contact on a voluntary basis is about all we can do.”
“I can say with near certainty that there will be a flu epidemic next year,” Dr. Sam Bozzette, an infectious disease researcher, declared at the Conference on World Affairs.
Bozzette is a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, and a medical professor at the University of California San Diego. His current research focuses on HIV/AIDS, but he spoke to an audience of about 50 people in the University Memorial Center at a Thursday afternoon lecture called “Duck!!! It’s the Bird Flu!”
Somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people will die in next year’s flu epidemic, said Bozzette. But, this is normal. Every year there is a seasonal flu epidemic, an outbreak that affects a large number of people at the same time. In 2005, 313 people in Denver died from influenza and pneumonia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The avian flu is different. This family of viruses is found widely in birds and is very deadly to humans, but hasn’t “learned” how to easily attach itself to the human respiratory tract, said Bozzette.
Worldwide, there have been only 194 confirmed cases of the bird flu in humans, but more than half of the people infected have died from the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
Most of the people who became ill caught the virus from an infected bird or its excrement, said Bozzette. Currently, the virus does not readily spread from one person to another.
However, if the human flu virus and avian flu virus infect the same animal and exchange genetic information, the bird flu may learn how to infect people, he said. Then the bird flu could easily pass from one person to the next.
Scientists and doctors are concerned that the avian flu will become pandemic, infecting people worldwide and jumping easily from person to person.
Will Styler, a CU junior, came to the lecture to learn how he can protect himself if there is a pandemic. Styler lives on-campus in Baker Hall and says that he’s seen how quickly other sicknesses have moved through the student body. He particularly remembers two years ago when a nasty stomach virus kept students hovering over toilets for days.
“I literally watched it walk down the hall,” Styler said.
During the question and answer period, Styler asked Bozzette how students living in the dorms could protect themselves.
Bozzette said that people in communal living settings should avoid any unnecessary social contact such as visiting other dorms. And, everyone, regardless of their living situation, should wash their hands often, he said.
“Sooner or later there is going to be a pandemic,” Bozzette said. “There is going to be another flu pandemic.”
When there is a pandemic it will likely last for four or five months like the 1918 flu pandemic, he said.
“There’s no question that relatively early in a serious outbreak, the healthcare system will be overwhelmed,” Bozzette said.
He recommended that people stock up on household goods in the event of a pandemic so that they can avoid frequent exposure to possible carriers of the avian flu.
“You will encounter people who look perfectly well who are shedding the flu virus,” Bozzette said. Therefore, it’s best to avoid contact with other people as much as possible.
Scientists aren’t sure exactly how the flu virus is spread. Studies indicate that the flu may be passed by touch, virus-carrying droplets from a cough or sneeze, or small particles in the air capable of traveling long distances, Bozzette said.
Bozzette said that more funding and research is needed to help scientists understand how the flu is passed from person to person. This type of knowledge will help communities stockpile the right types of supplies to combat an outbreak.
For example, if the virus is passed in droplets, then a standard medical face mask will be sufficient. However, if the virus moves on small particles through the air a more sophisticated mask will be necessary.
Unfortunately, some things like hospital beds, flu vaccine and face masks may be in short supply.
“We don’t have a lot of things you’d want to have if there were a pandemic,” Bozzette said. “It seems that immunization and cutting down contact on a voluntary basis is about all we can do.”
"Science for Dummies": Science writers share tips on the craft
By Scott Gates
When it comes to helping the public understand science, sometimes less is more, according to a panel of science writers. The three writers discussed how to communicate science effectively to general audiences during an April 11 session at the 58th Conference on World Affairs in Boulder.
Joe Romig, who teaches astronomy at the University of Colorado where the conference was held, served as moderator for the session titled "Science for Dummies." He stressed that what most readers want is not a highly-technical explanation when it comes to science.
Romig quoted his wife, who may have summed it up best in complaining to him: "I don't want to know how the clock works – I just want to know the time."
Each panelist spoke briefly about his or her experiences in conveying science to the general public before opening the session up to questions and discussion from the audience.
Sidney Perkowitz, who left a research career at Emory University to pursue writing, said he writes for science groupies, or those who like the ideas behind science but don't necessarily want to get bogged down in details. The key to capturing such an audience's attention, said Perkowitz, lies in personalizing the topic while keeping jargon and details to a minimum.
"A significant key to science writing is deciding how much to say, but more importantly how much to leave out," Perkowitz said. "I'm willing to leave out a lot of the detail so the main point makes sense."
Susan Zolla-Pazner followed Perkowitz with a quick breakdown of science basics often misunderstood by the public. The New York-based immunologist often works with students, and applied a classroom technique in asking the crowd to repeat in unison one tricky word: nuclear.
The often-mispronounced word "drives me crazy," said Zolla-Pazner, and is a good example of an otherwise simple term being misinterpreted.
She defined three other basic terms that may not always be clear to those outside the field: hypothesis, scientific theory and scientific law. The basic concept behind a hypothesis – a testable idea – is even misunderstood by some of the professionals who use it every day, she said.
"If it's just an idea and you can't test it, it has no business being in the world of science," said Zolla-Pazner, stressing that before any hypothesis is tested it must be assumed to be untrue. "It's a very different way of thinking, and I have to tell you most scientists forget about that."
The third panelist, Michael Chorost, has written for Wired, The Week and Sky, and recently released a memoir focused on experiences with his hearing, lost and regained with a cochlear implant. Chorost had hearing in only one ear since childhood, and on a business trip lost all hearing in the good ear.
"On the plane ride back home I thought: you know, I might be able to get a book out of this," Chorost said. "I was crushed and thrilled at the same time."
He has gained experience since writing his memoir as a science writer, and stressed the importance of analogy in explaining complex ideas. And following Perkowitz's train of thought, Chorost agreed that on occasion some detail must be sacrificed.
"The best science writers, I think, are the ones that can make mystery enjoyable even if it's not fully explainable," said Chorost.
During the question period, Amy Gahran, a Boulder freelance writer, asked how the public might get more involved in the scientific dialogue.
The panel members agreed that there is already a good deal of interaction between scientists and those outside the field, given that many scientists teach. Chorost pointed out that science writers themselves offer a good deal of feedback, and serve as a valuable bridge between the public and the scientific community.
Perkowitz supported his point, adding that even great thinkers like Einstein can't always write for the public mind. "There's a real difference between a world class scientist and a world class science writer," he said.
When it comes to helping the public understand science, sometimes less is more, according to a panel of science writers. The three writers discussed how to communicate science effectively to general audiences during an April 11 session at the 58th Conference on World Affairs in Boulder.
Joe Romig, who teaches astronomy at the University of Colorado where the conference was held, served as moderator for the session titled "Science for Dummies." He stressed that what most readers want is not a highly-technical explanation when it comes to science.
Romig quoted his wife, who may have summed it up best in complaining to him: "I don't want to know how the clock works – I just want to know the time."
Each panelist spoke briefly about his or her experiences in conveying science to the general public before opening the session up to questions and discussion from the audience.
Sidney Perkowitz, who left a research career at Emory University to pursue writing, said he writes for science groupies, or those who like the ideas behind science but don't necessarily want to get bogged down in details. The key to capturing such an audience's attention, said Perkowitz, lies in personalizing the topic while keeping jargon and details to a minimum.
"A significant key to science writing is deciding how much to say, but more importantly how much to leave out," Perkowitz said. "I'm willing to leave out a lot of the detail so the main point makes sense."
Susan Zolla-Pazner followed Perkowitz with a quick breakdown of science basics often misunderstood by the public. The New York-based immunologist often works with students, and applied a classroom technique in asking the crowd to repeat in unison one tricky word: nuclear.
The often-mispronounced word "drives me crazy," said Zolla-Pazner, and is a good example of an otherwise simple term being misinterpreted.
She defined three other basic terms that may not always be clear to those outside the field: hypothesis, scientific theory and scientific law. The basic concept behind a hypothesis – a testable idea – is even misunderstood by some of the professionals who use it every day, she said.
"If it's just an idea and you can't test it, it has no business being in the world of science," said Zolla-Pazner, stressing that before any hypothesis is tested it must be assumed to be untrue. "It's a very different way of thinking, and I have to tell you most scientists forget about that."
The third panelist, Michael Chorost, has written for Wired, The Week and Sky, and recently released a memoir focused on experiences with his hearing, lost and regained with a cochlear implant. Chorost had hearing in only one ear since childhood, and on a business trip lost all hearing in the good ear.
"On the plane ride back home I thought: you know, I might be able to get a book out of this," Chorost said. "I was crushed and thrilled at the same time."
He has gained experience since writing his memoir as a science writer, and stressed the importance of analogy in explaining complex ideas. And following Perkowitz's train of thought, Chorost agreed that on occasion some detail must be sacrificed.
"The best science writers, I think, are the ones that can make mystery enjoyable even if it's not fully explainable," said Chorost.
During the question period, Amy Gahran, a Boulder freelance writer, asked how the public might get more involved in the scientific dialogue.
The panel members agreed that there is already a good deal of interaction between scientists and those outside the field, given that many scientists teach. Chorost pointed out that science writers themselves offer a good deal of feedback, and serve as a valuable bridge between the public and the scientific community.
Perkowitz supported his point, adding that even great thinkers like Einstein can't always write for the public mind. "There's a real difference between a world class scientist and a world class science writer," he said.
Adieu to glacier skiing in the Alps?
Seth Masia remembers the Haute Route
By Seth Masia
In 1461, the scapegrace Francois Villon wrote a hauntingly wistful short poem about the fate of beautiful, beloved women, and it ended with the wonderful line, Ou sont les neiges d'antan? Where are the bygone snows?
For me, they're melting from the glaciers of the Alps. I want to get back soon, with my 16-year-old daughter. By the time she has children of her own old enough to ski those glaciers, they may be neiges d'antan.
Before global climate change began to discernibly diminish Europe's remaining glaciers, in the spring of 1983 I set out to ski the Haute Route, the classic tour from Chamonix, in France, across the top of the Alps to Zermatt and Saas-Fee, in Switzerland.
Mountain guides often say they can haul any strong recreational skier along the 60-mile Haute Route, but it is serious mountaineering terrain. One day requires 6,000 feet of climbing, and there are several nasty steep couloirs to negotiate. Avalanche is a persistent danger. But most of the mileage follows glaciers, vast and small, and the chief danger is that one may disappear forever into a crevasse.
I invited my buddy Stan Tener along, then (and now) a professional ski patroller at Snowmass, a member of their avalanche control team, and a good climber. Stan had never been to Europe, so he didn't know what he was getting into. We hooked up with photographer Del Mulkey. Del, 20 years our senior, was a former University of Montana ski racer who lived in the South of France and knew a lot more about travel in the Alps than we did. He had already skied the Haute Route a couple of times, and had also skied high into the Himalaya.
At Chamonix, the forecast called for clear weather for at least the next two days. Late in the afternoon we dragged our 35-pound packs onto the Argentière tram and rode up 9,000 vertical feet, high into a clear Alpine evening. We skied 2,200 vertical feet of moguls down to the first of our many glaciers, and skinned up for the short ascent to the fortress-like Argentière refuge.
Well before dawn on April 26, we traversed over to the foot of Chardonnet Glacier. There, we put on our new crampons, tied the skis to the packs, and began the steep 2,500-foot climb to the top of the world. Del climbed like a camel, plodding steadily upward without stopping for rest or water. He ate breakfast on the march, consuming a big chunk of the raw bacon the French call lard. At sunrise we reached the 10,900 foot Col de Choidon and gazed across the top of Europe, the early morning light picking out hundreds of snowy peaks arrayed to the horizons.
Over the next four days we climbed and descended steep couloirs, crossed cols, traversed steep icy avalanche-carrying sideslopes -- and followed glaciers. The glaciers made highways in the sky, long gradual langlauf ascents where we could climb at two miles an hour, and easy cruising descents when we could cover five or six miles in 40 minutes, finishing up with a cold beer in a village inn. We stayed each night in a snug refuge built on some aerie at the head of a glacier, and usually overlooking two or three more. As we ate our high-calorie dinners – goulaschsuppe, fried eggs with beans and potatoes, and fruit cocktail in kirsch – I loved to watch the sun set and see the brilliant white of the glacier surface turn deep blue and then black, while the overhanging rock faces shone with golden alpenglow. And I loved to be out on the trail in the early morning dark, to greet the dawn from the ridgeline and watch the light change again, in reverse.
We covered about 60 miles across Swiss glaciers, closely paralleling the Italian border, and had no close calls with crevasses – though Stan often screamed at me to stay out from under avalanche chutes. We met climbers and skiers from Austria, France, Switzerland and Holland. We argued in good spirits about our choice of route and equipment – Del used fat randonée skis, Stan and I were on skinny "norpine" skis with leather telemark boots.
On the fifth day the weather turned nasty. Unable to see the crevasses in the white-out blizzard, we bailed out to the resort town of Arolla, ten miles short of Zermatt.
The adventure changed our lives. Stunned by the immensity of the Alps, Stan went back to Chamonix a year later as an exchange patroller. He worked through the winter at the Grands Montets, and came home speaking fluent locker-room French. He still patrols, and knocks down avalanches, at Snowmass. And I abandoned the dark canyons of New York. I moved to Truckee and hired on to teach skiing at Squaw Valley, where I could find reliable backcountry skiing into July.
Del died in Paris in December of 2003, full of age and wisdom, red wine and lard.
The Swiss government now reports that their average glacier is retreating at about 50 meters per year. Thanks to global warming, this rate is accelerating, and few glaciers, anywhere in the world, are expected to survive this century. Some of the smaller, steeper glaciers – the Arolla glacier contains only about a third of a cubic kilometer of ice – won't outlive me. One annual report by the Swiss Academy of Sciences says that by 2025, alpine glaciers will retreat to about 45 percent of their 1885 extent. Small icefields make up 25 percent of the total glacial volume – and these will all be gone. The Italian resort of Val Senales had to close its summer operation this August because its glacier simply vanished.
I want to ski what's left, with my kid, while we still can.
Copyright 2005 by Seth Masia
2269 Mariposa Ave
Boulder CO 80302
303.594.1657
975 words/FNAS rights
In 1461, the scapegrace Francois Villon wrote a hauntingly wistful short poem about the fate of beautiful, beloved women, and it ended with the wonderful line, Ou sont les neiges d'antan? Where are the bygone snows?
For me, they're melting from the glaciers of the Alps. I want to get back soon, with my 16-year-old daughter. By the time she has children of her own old enough to ski those glaciers, they may be neiges d'antan.
Before global climate change began to discernibly diminish Europe's remaining glaciers, in the spring of 1983 I set out to ski the Haute Route, the classic tour from Chamonix, in France, across the top of the Alps to Zermatt and Saas-Fee, in Switzerland.
 |
| Glacier skiing on the Haute Route between Chamonix and Zermatt (Photo/wikipedia.org) |
Mountain guides often say they can haul any strong recreational skier along the 60-mile Haute Route, but it is serious mountaineering terrain. One day requires 6,000 feet of climbing, and there are several nasty steep couloirs to negotiate. Avalanche is a persistent danger. But most of the mileage follows glaciers, vast and small, and the chief danger is that one may disappear forever into a crevasse.
I invited my buddy Stan Tener along, then (and now) a professional ski patroller at Snowmass, a member of their avalanche control team, and a good climber. Stan had never been to Europe, so he didn't know what he was getting into. We hooked up with photographer Del Mulkey. Del, 20 years our senior, was a former University of Montana ski racer who lived in the South of France and knew a lot more about travel in the Alps than we did. He had already skied the Haute Route a couple of times, and had also skied high into the Himalaya.
At Chamonix, the forecast called for clear weather for at least the next two days. Late in the afternoon we dragged our 35-pound packs onto the Argentière tram and rode up 9,000 vertical feet, high into a clear Alpine evening. We skied 2,200 vertical feet of moguls down to the first of our many glaciers, and skinned up for the short ascent to the fortress-like Argentière refuge.
Well before dawn on April 26, we traversed over to the foot of Chardonnet Glacier. There, we put on our new crampons, tied the skis to the packs, and began the steep 2,500-foot climb to the top of the world. Del climbed like a camel, plodding steadily upward without stopping for rest or water. He ate breakfast on the march, consuming a big chunk of the raw bacon the French call lard. At sunrise we reached the 10,900 foot Col de Choidon and gazed across the top of Europe, the early morning light picking out hundreds of snowy peaks arrayed to the horizons.
Over the next four days we climbed and descended steep couloirs, crossed cols, traversed steep icy avalanche-carrying sideslopes -- and followed glaciers. The glaciers made highways in the sky, long gradual langlauf ascents where we could climb at two miles an hour, and easy cruising descents when we could cover five or six miles in 40 minutes, finishing up with a cold beer in a village inn. We stayed each night in a snug refuge built on some aerie at the head of a glacier, and usually overlooking two or three more. As we ate our high-calorie dinners – goulaschsuppe, fried eggs with beans and potatoes, and fruit cocktail in kirsch – I loved to watch the sun set and see the brilliant white of the glacier surface turn deep blue and then black, while the overhanging rock faces shone with golden alpenglow. And I loved to be out on the trail in the early morning dark, to greet the dawn from the ridgeline and watch the light change again, in reverse.
 |
| Mont Blanc's icy massif dominates the French side of the Haute Route (Photo/wikipedia.org) |
We covered about 60 miles across Swiss glaciers, closely paralleling the Italian border, and had no close calls with crevasses – though Stan often screamed at me to stay out from under avalanche chutes. We met climbers and skiers from Austria, France, Switzerland and Holland. We argued in good spirits about our choice of route and equipment – Del used fat randonée skis, Stan and I were on skinny "norpine" skis with leather telemark boots.
On the fifth day the weather turned nasty. Unable to see the crevasses in the white-out blizzard, we bailed out to the resort town of Arolla, ten miles short of Zermatt.
The adventure changed our lives. Stunned by the immensity of the Alps, Stan went back to Chamonix a year later as an exchange patroller. He worked through the winter at the Grands Montets, and came home speaking fluent locker-room French. He still patrols, and knocks down avalanches, at Snowmass. And I abandoned the dark canyons of New York. I moved to Truckee and hired on to teach skiing at Squaw Valley, where I could find reliable backcountry skiing into July.
Del died in Paris in December of 2003, full of age and wisdom, red wine and lard.
The Swiss government now reports that their average glacier is retreating at about 50 meters per year. Thanks to global warming, this rate is accelerating, and few glaciers, anywhere in the world, are expected to survive this century. Some of the smaller, steeper glaciers – the Arolla glacier contains only about a third of a cubic kilometer of ice – won't outlive me. One annual report by the Swiss Academy of Sciences says that by 2025, alpine glaciers will retreat to about 45 percent of their 1885 extent. Small icefields make up 25 percent of the total glacial volume – and these will all be gone. The Italian resort of Val Senales had to close its summer operation this August because its glacier simply vanished.
I want to ski what's left, with my kid, while we still can.
Copyright 2005 by Seth Masia
2269 Mariposa Ave
Boulder CO 80302
303.594.1657
975 words/FNAS rights
Conservative think tanks shape public opinion about climate change
By Wendy Worrall Redal
In the Winter 2006 edition of CEJ News/Views we ran a story on a new interdisciplinary course at the University of Colorado called Environment, Media and Culture, offered during the 2006 spring semester to students in journalism, media studies and environmental studies. The class explored the social and cultural factors that shape the way environmental issues are covered by the media and understood by the public.
As a final project, students submitted a research paper investigating an angle or case study of how environmental discourse is socially constructed. The students' research brought interesting observations to bear on the relationship between forces of influence in the public sphere and media coverage of environmental issues. An exemplary project was Scott Heiser's study of the role of conservative think tanks on public opinion about climate change.
He began with this dilemma:
"A broad scientific consensus has existed for many years about the existence of a warming planet due to carbon dioxide emissions and that this is such a grave problem that it demands a policy response from government. Despite this consensus and despite this urgency, nothing resembling a comprehensive and appropriate public policy has been implemented. Why?"
His research offers an answer:
"In a significant way, institutions marked by their allegiance to the American conservative political movement have forestalled any realization of an adequate public policy addressing climate change…What is evident after some study is that a well-funded, well-organized 'movement' has been successful in preventing U.S. action on global warming."
A central part of that effort has been the use of rhetorical techniques and issue-framing that has prevented meaningful action on the issue. Heiser's paper identifies the key role of such communication strategies in the concerted political battle over climate change.
The Center for Environmental Journalism recognizes the value of such scholarship in unpacking the complex matrix of influences that affect how environmental stories are told. If journalists can benefit from the light media scholars can shed on their practices, they can pursue and report stories more self-consciously. Likewise, news audiences, attuned to the myriad efforts to shape the content they ultimately get, can be more cautious and critical information consumers.
Toward that end, we are pleased to present Heiser's work. While an academic term paper is outside this newsletter's regular format, it nonetheless makes for a riveting read. For the full text of Heiser's study, see Fear and Loathing on Planet Earth: Partisan War in an Age of Environmental Crisis. Heiser will be a senior media studies major in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at CU next year.
In the Winter 2006 edition of CEJ News/Views we ran a story on a new interdisciplinary course at the University of Colorado called Environment, Media and Culture, offered during the 2006 spring semester to students in journalism, media studies and environmental studies. The class explored the social and cultural factors that shape the way environmental issues are covered by the media and understood by the public.
As a final project, students submitted a research paper investigating an angle or case study of how environmental discourse is socially constructed. The students' research brought interesting observations to bear on the relationship between forces of influence in the public sphere and media coverage of environmental issues. An exemplary project was Scott Heiser's study of the role of conservative think tanks on public opinion about climate change.
He began with this dilemma:
"A broad scientific consensus has existed for many years about the existence of a warming planet due to carbon dioxide emissions and that this is such a grave problem that it demands a policy response from government. Despite this consensus and despite this urgency, nothing resembling a comprehensive and appropriate public policy has been implemented. Why?"
His research offers an answer:
"In a significant way, institutions marked by their allegiance to the American conservative political movement have forestalled any realization of an adequate public policy addressing climate change…What is evident after some study is that a well-funded, well-organized 'movement' has been successful in preventing U.S. action on global warming."
A central part of that effort has been the use of rhetorical techniques and issue-framing that has prevented meaningful action on the issue. Heiser's paper identifies the key role of such communication strategies in the concerted political battle over climate change.
The Center for Environmental Journalism recognizes the value of such scholarship in unpacking the complex matrix of influences that affect how environmental stories are told. If journalists can benefit from the light media scholars can shed on their practices, they can pursue and report stories more self-consciously. Likewise, news audiences, attuned to the myriad efforts to shape the content they ultimately get, can be more cautious and critical information consumers.
Toward that end, we are pleased to present Heiser's work. While an academic term paper is outside this newsletter's regular format, it nonetheless makes for a riveting read. For the full text of Heiser's study, see Fear and Loathing on Planet Earth: Partisan War in an Age of Environmental Crisis. Heiser will be a senior media studies major in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at CU next year.
Summertime, and the Livin' Ain't Easy: Environmental Questions from New Orleans
by Wendy Worrall Redal
As you drive into New Orleans from Louis Armstrong Airport, signs that things aren't back to normal after Hurricane Katrina are subtle at first: a billboard asks "Got Mold?" Then another: "Call 1-800-AID-MOLD." Then another: "Screwed by your insurance adjuster? Call Bogan & Bogan, Attorneys at Law." There's more litter and debris in the expressway median and along the sides of I-10 than seems right, even in this sub-tropical party city that's not known for being particularly clean. And there is a lot of wayward vegetation along the sides of the highway: tall weeds and scruffy grass that doesn't look like it's seen any grooming in, well, the better part of a year. Driving downtown on I-10, it's evident the roof of the Superdome is still under construction, though a giant banner on the side proclaims "Re-opening 9/24/2006. Go Saints!"
But these are only surface indicators of the lingering havoc wrought by Katrina last August. An excursion into the vast tracts of flooded neighborhoods away from the interstate reveals a landscape that still looks like a war zone, and a host of environmental concerns that will raise questions about health and safety in New Orleans for years to come.
I went to New Orleans in May, part of a team of volunteers from Boulder who spent a week cleaning out and gutting houses, just a handful of the thousands of homes that sit largely untouched since Katrina sunk this low-lying city over nine months ago. I heard amazing stories of escape and heartbreak, emotional trauma and dogged determination to rebuild and renew, even as a new hurricane season threatens to hit New Orleans when she's down – way down.
As a human being, I was moved to the core by the scope of the loss around me: more than 200,000 homes destroyed, displaced families, shattered communities, a unique culture now fractured and profoundly vulnerable.
As an observer of environmental journalism, I was struck by the magnitude of the environmental problems New Orleans faces in Katrina's wake, and how little we are hearing about them – or about conditions in New Orleans generally – in the national news media. The environmental stories spawned by Katrina are myriad, but they don't seem to be getting told outside the pages of the Times-Picayune.
I saw the makings of one story during the drive in: the freeway overpasses that thousands of people huddled on last August were humming with traffic, though underneath the concrete spans lay thousands of derelict cars – dusty, filled with dried mud, dented wrecks long since looted for wheels or parts. This is where most of the city's abandoned vehicles have been stowed, for now, anyway. Some of them are gradually being towed to steel salvage yards, where they will be turned into scrap metal to be shipped to Japan. But what about the rest of the cars? The seats and tires and engine parts that can't be used? We're talking tens of thousands, maybe a couple hundred thousand, vehicles. Will they go to landfills, after whatever is salvageable has been recovered? What landfill can hold all those thousands of cars? How would they get there? What landfills have absorbed all the city's detritus so far?
That last question took on even bigger proportions for me after our first day of work. Our task was to empty out a young family's home in Lakeview, one of the hardest-hit areas that was inundated when the 17th Street Canal levee broke.
While the home's brick exterior looked mostly okay, save for the telltale "bathtub line" eight feet up on its side, a glimpse inside the front door revealed the devastation hidden from the sidewalk view. It also revealed the reason we needed to wear N-95 breathing masks, safety goggles and heavy gloves, as well as long-sleeved shirts, long pants and boots: the inside of the house was a chaotic mess of filth, damp, mud and mold, piles of upended furniture, wood flooring buckling, sodden clothing still hanging in the closets, moldering groceries in the kitchen cupboards. Six feet of putrid water had sloshed around in the house for over two weeks, floating a heavy armoire and dressers and cabinets, CDs and stereo and computer components still lodged on the wooden shelves. The air inside the house was close and dank with humidity and the odor of mold, which crawled up the walls in gray and black patches.
We hauled out ruined furniture, soggy mattresses, and countless loads of damaged household goods. In a half-day's time the 15 of us had heaped a rather colossal pile of stuff on the sidewalk out front. It looked like a half-block-long stack of junk, haphazardly mixed and tossed debris, ready for FEMA contractors to scrape up and dump. But we had picked it up bit by bit before we carted it out in wheelbarrows and garbage cans, and it was the tangible record of a family's life: their clothes and books and art and music, their food and dishes and make-up and jewelry. Treasures, now trash. What's treasured now is not what is on the sidewalk.
But where will all the trash go? I became obsessed with the question.
In the case of this home, we hadn't even torn out all the moldy sheetrock, which would have filled another half-block with debris. The owners weren't sure what they were going to do with the house, whether they could qualify for insurance in order to rebuild, so there was no point in gutting it if it was going to be bulldozed.
I learned through the Times-Picayune that plans were in place to re-open at least one closed landfill in East New Orleans, a badly flooded, low-lying part of the city that was once home to many poor residents. Apparently, this was one of many post-Katrina situations in which a quick federal override would circumvent normal channels requiring the environmental impact assessments typically mandated by such a move.
When I considered the kind of debris we had amassed at just four houses by the end of that week, there was no doubt that some of what we tossed out contained toxic substances. There were computer monitors filled with lead, old roof shingles that might have contained asbestos, ragged sheets of linoleum backed with a foul-smelling glue, and bottles of household cleaning agents – not to mention an array of electrical appliances. And while FEMA guidelines indicated that hazardous materials should be separated out, who knew how meticulous most residents, or clean-up crews, were? Surely no FEMA contractor was going to sift through the giant heaps of moldy junk sitting on the sidewalk to be sure any toxic materials hadn't been slipped in.
If all this stuff was headed to a standard landfill, especially one re-opened in a hurry to help absorb the millions of tons of debris, what about monitoring the soil where these toxins might leach? What about the Vietnamese community that is re-establishing itself in New Orleans East not far from the landfill in question? What about the water table?
Water was another subject that colonized my thoughts as we worked. You still couldn't drink it in the Lower Ninth Ward, the hardest-hit part of the city next to the Industrial Canal levee breach whose (former) residents were only just permitted to return to their homes while I was there. Nearly nine months after the hurricane and no potable water in this largely poor neighborhood – assuming you could find a working tap.
It was one thing to imagine the miles of empty houses we saw submerged in muddy, storm-churned sea water. It was another – and more accurate – to picture what else the floodwater held. My mind began to imagine the dead bodies floating in the vile water, the oil and diesel and gasoline and Freon and chemicals, the medical biohazard material, the contents of grocery store shelves, the rancid meat… What substances had permeated the soil beneath the grass on which we sat during our lunch break? What about my friend's little vegetable garden outside her home near City Park? Her elevated house escaped flooding, but two feet of that water lay around it for nearly three weeks. Had she no qualms about eating those tomatoes?
Cleaning up polluted soil is one of the tasks any returning homeowner must face. And it can be daunting. First, one has to determine what contaminants are in the soil. Studies have shown that sediment deposited by the floodwaters contains unsafe levels of arsenic, diesel fuel and other petrochemicals, heavy metals, phthalates (chemical used to soften plastics), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), fertilizers and pesticides. Many of these substances are known carcinogens, and many are linked to increased frequency of miscarriages, birth defects, or nervous system effects.
Any flooded area is likely to have dangerous levels of toxic substances, many of which were already at levels that far exceeded what is deemed acceptable by the EPA, since Lousiana's "acceptable" standards are far more lax. The problem is compounded by the extensive oil and chemical industry in and around New Orleans. Floodwaters and hurricane winds caused spillage in many storage facilities, including the release of 1.05 million gallons of crude oil from the Murphy Oil refinery, a spill larger than that of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.
The most efficient way to clean up contaminated soil is to remove it, but this requires hiring a contractor to take away a layer of ground, a costly proposition. Common Ground, a grassroots organization founded just days after Katrina hit, has issued guidelines for residents to do their own soil-testing and clean-up far more cheaply.
Residents can take their own samples and have them analyzed using a simple test kit through the Louisiana State University Agriculture Center. Or they can use existing data collected at sites all over New Orleans by various groups including the EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
To clean up less expensively, Common Ground recommends using plants, or "phytoremediation," to remove toxins from the soil. Since certain plants absorb certain toxins, drawing them from the soil into their roots, shoots and leaves, one must first learn what's in the soil in order to know what plants to introduce. Sunflowers, for instance, are "hyper-accumulators" of lead, while mustard greens remove both lead and arsenic. Spinach and carrots will remove chromium, copper, manganese and iron, though one would never want to eat any vegetables used to suck heavy metals out of the ground. In fact, once the toxin-eating plants are full-grown, they must be thrown out or treated as toxic waste.
Common Ground also gives details on a "helpful bacteria"-based mold abatement method, which the group claims is more effective in preventing further mold growth than bleach, which is more commonly used. And that raises another question about the long-term environmental health of New Orleans residents: while the presence of mold can be poisonous in a home, what are the long-term effects of standard mold mitigation methods? Are the chemical sealants rendering gutted house frames "safe" really all that safe themselves? How likely is it, given the magnitude of the flooding, that mold spores will be floating in the air in New Orleans for months, years, to come?
The environmental health questions go on: "Can I eat seafood from Lake Pontchartrain?" "Is the concrete safe for my kids to play on?" "Is the mud and dust safe when it is dry?" Pamphlets from Common Ground include answers to these questions and others. And while such inquiries may seem like localized concerns for returning residents of New Orleans, the overall environmental catastrophe that Katrina spawned remains. Above all, it may be prove to be an environmental justice story that no ethical American should ignore, least of all journalists.
As you drive into New Orleans from Louis Armstrong Airport, signs that things aren't back to normal after Hurricane Katrina are subtle at first: a billboard asks "Got Mold?" Then another: "Call 1-800-AID-MOLD." Then another: "Screwed by your insurance adjuster? Call Bogan & Bogan, Attorneys at Law." There's more litter and debris in the expressway median and along the sides of I-10 than seems right, even in this sub-tropical party city that's not known for being particularly clean. And there is a lot of wayward vegetation along the sides of the highway: tall weeds and scruffy grass that doesn't look like it's seen any grooming in, well, the better part of a year. Driving downtown on I-10, it's evident the roof of the Superdome is still under construction, though a giant banner on the side proclaims "Re-opening 9/24/2006. Go Saints!"
But these are only surface indicators of the lingering havoc wrought by Katrina last August. An excursion into the vast tracts of flooded neighborhoods away from the interstate reveals a landscape that still looks like a war zone, and a host of environmental concerns that will raise questions about health and safety in New Orleans for years to come.
I went to New Orleans in May, part of a team of volunteers from Boulder who spent a week cleaning out and gutting houses, just a handful of the thousands of homes that sit largely untouched since Katrina sunk this low-lying city over nine months ago. I heard amazing stories of escape and heartbreak, emotional trauma and dogged determination to rebuild and renew, even as a new hurricane season threatens to hit New Orleans when she's down – way down.
As a human being, I was moved to the core by the scope of the loss around me: more than 200,000 homes destroyed, displaced families, shattered communities, a unique culture now fractured and profoundly vulnerable.
As an observer of environmental journalism, I was struck by the magnitude of the environmental problems New Orleans faces in Katrina's wake, and how little we are hearing about them – or about conditions in New Orleans generally – in the national news media. The environmental stories spawned by Katrina are myriad, but they don't seem to be getting told outside the pages of the Times-Picayune.
I saw the makings of one story during the drive in: the freeway overpasses that thousands of people huddled on last August were humming with traffic, though underneath the concrete spans lay thousands of derelict cars – dusty, filled with dried mud, dented wrecks long since looted for wheels or parts. This is where most of the city's abandoned vehicles have been stowed, for now, anyway. Some of them are gradually being towed to steel salvage yards, where they will be turned into scrap metal to be shipped to Japan. But what about the rest of the cars? The seats and tires and engine parts that can't be used? We're talking tens of thousands, maybe a couple hundred thousand, vehicles. Will they go to landfills, after whatever is salvageable has been recovered? What landfill can hold all those thousands of cars? How would they get there? What landfills have absorbed all the city's detritus so far?
That last question took on even bigger proportions for me after our first day of work. Our task was to empty out a young family's home in Lakeview, one of the hardest-hit areas that was inundated when the 17th Street Canal levee broke.
While the home's brick exterior looked mostly okay, save for the telltale "bathtub line" eight feet up on its side, a glimpse inside the front door revealed the devastation hidden from the sidewalk view. It also revealed the reason we needed to wear N-95 breathing masks, safety goggles and heavy gloves, as well as long-sleeved shirts, long pants and boots: the inside of the house was a chaotic mess of filth, damp, mud and mold, piles of upended furniture, wood flooring buckling, sodden clothing still hanging in the closets, moldering groceries in the kitchen cupboards. Six feet of putrid water had sloshed around in the house for over two weeks, floating a heavy armoire and dressers and cabinets, CDs and stereo and computer components still lodged on the wooden shelves. The air inside the house was close and dank with humidity and the odor of mold, which crawled up the walls in gray and black patches.
 |
| Moldy living room debris after 10 feet of floodwater (Photo/Russ Teets) |
We hauled out ruined furniture, soggy mattresses, and countless loads of damaged household goods. In a half-day's time the 15 of us had heaped a rather colossal pile of stuff on the sidewalk out front. It looked like a half-block-long stack of junk, haphazardly mixed and tossed debris, ready for FEMA contractors to scrape up and dump. But we had picked it up bit by bit before we carted it out in wheelbarrows and garbage cans, and it was the tangible record of a family's life: their clothes and books and art and music, their food and dishes and make-up and jewelry. Treasures, now trash. What's treasured now is not what is on the sidewalk.
But where will all the trash go? I became obsessed with the question.
In the case of this home, we hadn't even torn out all the moldy sheetrock, which would have filled another half-block with debris. The owners weren't sure what they were going to do with the house, whether they could qualify for insurance in order to rebuild, so there was no point in gutting it if it was going to be bulldozed.
I learned through the Times-Picayune that plans were in place to re-open at least one closed landfill in East New Orleans, a badly flooded, low-lying part of the city that was once home to many poor residents. Apparently, this was one of many post-Katrina situations in which a quick federal override would circumvent normal channels requiring the environmental impact assessments typically mandated by such a move.
When I considered the kind of debris we had amassed at just four houses by the end of that week, there was no doubt that some of what we tossed out contained toxic substances. There were computer monitors filled with lead, old roof shingles that might have contained asbestos, ragged sheets of linoleum backed with a foul-smelling glue, and bottles of household cleaning agents – not to mention an array of electrical appliances. And while FEMA guidelines indicated that hazardous materials should be separated out, who knew how meticulous most residents, or clean-up crews, were? Surely no FEMA contractor was going to sift through the giant heaps of moldy junk sitting on the sidewalk to be sure any toxic materials hadn't been slipped in.
 |
| The contents of a Lakeview home, ready for disposal (Photo/Russ Teets) |
If all this stuff was headed to a standard landfill, especially one re-opened in a hurry to help absorb the millions of tons of debris, what about monitoring the soil where these toxins might leach? What about the Vietnamese community that is re-establishing itself in New Orleans East not far from the landfill in question? What about the water table?
Water was another subject that colonized my thoughts as we worked. You still couldn't drink it in the Lower Ninth Ward, the hardest-hit part of the city next to the Industrial Canal levee breach whose (former) residents were only just permitted to return to their homes while I was there. Nearly nine months after the hurricane and no potable water in this largely poor neighborhood – assuming you could find a working tap.
 |
| A home in the Lower Ninth Ward, eight months after Hurricane Katrina (Photo/Russ Teets) |
It was one thing to imagine the miles of empty houses we saw submerged in muddy, storm-churned sea water. It was another – and more accurate – to picture what else the floodwater held. My mind began to imagine the dead bodies floating in the vile water, the oil and diesel and gasoline and Freon and chemicals, the medical biohazard material, the contents of grocery store shelves, the rancid meat… What substances had permeated the soil beneath the grass on which we sat during our lunch break? What about my friend's little vegetable garden outside her home near City Park? Her elevated house escaped flooding, but two feet of that water lay around it for nearly three weeks. Had she no qualms about eating those tomatoes?
Cleaning up polluted soil is one of the tasks any returning homeowner must face. And it can be daunting. First, one has to determine what contaminants are in the soil. Studies have shown that sediment deposited by the floodwaters contains unsafe levels of arsenic, diesel fuel and other petrochemicals, heavy metals, phthalates (chemical used to soften plastics), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), fertilizers and pesticides. Many of these substances are known carcinogens, and many are linked to increased frequency of miscarriages, birth defects, or nervous system effects.
Any flooded area is likely to have dangerous levels of toxic substances, many of which were already at levels that far exceeded what is deemed acceptable by the EPA, since Lousiana's "acceptable" standards are far more lax. The problem is compounded by the extensive oil and chemical industry in and around New Orleans. Floodwaters and hurricane winds caused spillage in many storage facilities, including the release of 1.05 million gallons of crude oil from the Murphy Oil refinery, a spill larger than that of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.
The most efficient way to clean up contaminated soil is to remove it, but this requires hiring a contractor to take away a layer of ground, a costly proposition. Common Ground, a grassroots organization founded just days after Katrina hit, has issued guidelines for residents to do their own soil-testing and clean-up far more cheaply.
Residents can take their own samples and have them analyzed using a simple test kit through the Louisiana State University Agriculture Center. Or they can use existing data collected at sites all over New Orleans by various groups including the EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
To clean up less expensively, Common Ground recommends using plants, or "phytoremediation," to remove toxins from the soil. Since certain plants absorb certain toxins, drawing them from the soil into their roots, shoots and leaves, one must first learn what's in the soil in order to know what plants to introduce. Sunflowers, for instance, are "hyper-accumulators" of lead, while mustard greens remove both lead and arsenic. Spinach and carrots will remove chromium, copper, manganese and iron, though one would never want to eat any vegetables used to suck heavy metals out of the ground. In fact, once the toxin-eating plants are full-grown, they must be thrown out or treated as toxic waste.
Common Ground also gives details on a "helpful bacteria"-based mold abatement method, which the group claims is more effective in preventing further mold growth than bleach, which is more commonly used. And that raises another question about the long-term environmental health of New Orleans residents: while the presence of mold can be poisonous in a home, what are the long-term effects of standard mold mitigation methods? Are the chemical sealants rendering gutted house frames "safe" really all that safe themselves? How likely is it, given the magnitude of the flooding, that mold spores will be floating in the air in New Orleans for months, years, to come?
The environmental health questions go on: "Can I eat seafood from Lake Pontchartrain?" "Is the concrete safe for my kids to play on?" "Is the mud and dust safe when it is dry?" Pamphlets from Common Ground include answers to these questions and others. And while such inquiries may seem like localized concerns for returning residents of New Orleans, the overall environmental catastrophe that Katrina spawned remains. Above all, it may be prove to be an environmental justice story that no ethical American should ignore, least of all journalists.
Cell Phone Recycler Talks Trash
By Felicia Russell
Tall and slim, wearing a dark, double-breasted suit, Peter Schindler casually fingered his black Motorola Moto Razr V3 cell phone—which PCMag.com calls "the ultimate see-and-be-seen phone for style mavens who don't care about price."
"For me, I'm very simplistic about phones; I'd like not to own one," said Schindler, 31.
Not one to pass on an opportunity, however, Schindler saw a chance to capitalize on the popularity and perceived disposability of cell phones, and at the same time, do something positive for the environment and community.
Four years ago, Schindler founded The Wireless Alliance (TWA), which has recently partnered with the University of Colorado at Boulder to collect used cell phones. The phones will be sold for parts or refurbishing, and a portion of the money earned will be donated to charities and student groups.
Although he employs just three other men, Schindler says he has big dreams for the future. "I would like to have our 'recycle your wireless phone' logo on the back of every phone with our 1-866 number on there," Schindler says.
He has yet to splash his logo across the back of cell phones everywhere, but it is popping up on the CU campus.
The campus cell phone recycling effort, which is being led by the university's recycling director, Jack DeBell, began in late February with a 3-foot-tall plastic box. This box, bearing TWA's logo, has been placed in the University Memorial Center to encourage students to collect their old phones and donate them to the charity or student group of the month.
Profits from the first round of recycled cell phones will go to the Emergency Family Assistance Association, a Boulder-based group that provides emergency assistance for people struggling to pay housing, utilities and other necessary expenses. DeBell says he hopes that the association's high profile will stimulate interest among other non-profits in the community.
While DeBell says he doesn't really know Schindler, he is optimistic about the program.
"The one time that I visited Peter's Boulder location, I was impressed with the flurry of activity. It reminded me of our offices here. There was a sense of urgency, of excitement, and of potential," DeBell said.
Indeed, Schindler seems to be a font of energy and enthusiasm.
"I first went door to door literally asking my neighbors for their old phones. On my old street—Kohler Drive—I got about 1.8 phones per household. If you multiply this by the number of households using wireless phones, you get between 700 million to 1 billion out-of-use handsets in the United States alone," he said.
Schindler officially started TWA in January 2002. His first client was Midwest Wireless, a cell phone provider that serves people in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
TWA placed drop boxes in Midwest Wireless stores where customers could recycle their old phones.
"We're quite pleased with his performance and use him as our sole source of liquidation and recycling," said Tim Johnson, the Product Distribution Supervisor for Midwest Wireless.
Although he couldn't put a number on it, Johnson estimated that the recycling program has raised "hundreds of thousands of dollars," which the company then donates to non-profits like United Way and the American Cancer Society.
Johnson said that TWA is an extension of Schindler's personal values, and that it "stands for what he stands for."
"Peter is, among other things, extremely helpful. He is the type of person who will go out of his way to make things happen for you," says Johnson. "He is a generous person with his time and resources."
TWA has also developed a postage-paid mail-back program to encourage people to recycle cell phones they've stashed in drawers and closets. Midwest Wireless and KALW radio in Schindler's hometown of San Francisco are both using the mailing program.
Schindler says he comes from a long line of inventors including his mother, Anita, who developed Brainwash, which he says is the first café-laundromat in San Francisco, and his father, Robert, who retired from the University of California at San Francisco after a career spent advancing cochlear implant technology, which can help some deaf people hear.
Schindler recalls having always had a passion for art and music. He studied art history as a student at CU. After graduating in 1996, Schindler spent a brief time in his home state of California before returning to Colorado to work in the music industry. He worked for a Boulder company that managed the Greyboy Allstars, a band out of San Diego whose music can be heard in the film Zero Effect.
"Then after a while the music industry didn't pay for what it required. So, I got into cell phones. Once I realized the value of used phones and the good I could do by collecting them for donation—environmental reasons, etcetera—I went with that," Schindler said.
According to Schindler, his "stab at the American Dream" has been successful. Although he refused to say what his profits were in 2005, Schindler says that the money generated from selling the collected cell phones to be melted down or refurbished totaled as much as $4.2 million one year. The average inflow, he says, is about $3 million per year.
TWA pays part of that money back to its partners, who can earn 5 cents to more than $75 a phone, but tend to average $2 per phone, says Schindler. He declined to say what percentage of TWA's income is paid back to charities, but says his clients are happy.
"Generally, we like to give back 20 percent of the collection total at the end as a bonus. It is a strategy that has separated me from my competitors when dealing with non-profits," Schindler said. "They love it."
While he wouldn't say if TWA is out of the red and making a profit, records from his 2005 divorce suggest that the company is still in debt. Both he and his ex-wife were responsible for paying up to $100,000 towards the company's debt.
Nestled beside the Avery Brewery in a small warehouse in East Boulder, operating with only four sets of hands, TWA is earning enough to pay Schindler what he calls a "modest" income. According to his divorce records, that totaled $100,776 in 2005.
If trends in the wireless industry continue as they have in recent years, TWA faces a bright financial future.
Over the last 20 years, the number of wireless subscribers in the United States has risen from about 203,600 people to nearly 195 million people, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
Cell phones have become a valuable tool in American society. However, wireless companies in the United States commonly mark down new cell phones and include the cost in their wireless plan, which makes them appear cheaper than they really are. This also makes them seem more disposable in the eyes of consumers.
In fact, most phones are only used for 18 months before being replaced with newer models, according to a study by Inform Inc., called "Waste in the Wireless World." The high turnover of phones in the United States is generating an estimated 130 million cell phones or 65,000 tons of waste per year.
Many of these phones wind up in landfills where they can become an environmental hazard. Like other electronic equipment, or e-waste, cell phones contain a number of heavy metals that could leach out and contaminate ground water.
A 2004 EPA-sponsored study found that nearly three-quarters of the 38 cell phones tested released enough lead to be considered toxic waste by the government when exposed to landfill-like conditions. Timothy G. Townsend, an associate professor in environmental engineering at the University of Florida, led the study.
"They (the public) should not be concerned about any grave threat to the environment by disposal of (cell phones) in modern lined landfills," Townsend wrote in an e-mail. "But, it is certainly understandable to in general be concerned where wastes that contain toxic chemicals are disposed and whether we should be finding alternatives to toxic chemicals in our products and whether we should do more to recycle them."
At TWA, the two men who do the grunt work of recycling have the task of disassembling cell phones. They check to see that the phone works, erase the memory, take out the batteries, and grind up the sim card, which contains personal information like calendars and friends' phone numbers.
Phones that can be resold are carefully catalogued and sorted into storage bins. Those phones that have become obsolete are tossed into a cavernous box containing thousands of other rejected phones.
Schindler's recycling box of 1990s behemoths will be sent to Reldan Metals Inc., where the phones will be shredded and processed to collect metals like gold, platinum, lead, silver and palladium.
According to Schindler, one ton of ancient cell phones might yield $4,000 to $5,000 in precious metals including gold, platinum, silver and palladium, as well as copper and lead. The metals extracted from cell phones might be used to make CDs, underwire bras, drills, tire irons, sandals, remote control cars, even singing bass trophies, says Schindler.
He estimates that 40 percent of the more than 20,000 phones that TWA collected in February went straight to the recycle box. The newer models in Schindler's warehouse are sold each month to companies that refurbish the phones and resell them to customers using a prepaid wireless service.
Schindler doesn't see the market slowing any time in the near future.
"I hope that I can continue this business of recycling and keep it changing like a chameleon with the technology," Schindler said. "I hope to educate as many people as possible about the right thing to do with their phones."
Tall and slim, wearing a dark, double-breasted suit, Peter Schindler casually fingered his black Motorola Moto Razr V3 cell phone—which PCMag.com calls "the ultimate see-and-be-seen phone for style mavens who don't care about price."
"For me, I'm very simplistic about phones; I'd like not to own one," said Schindler, 31.
Not one to pass on an opportunity, however, Schindler saw a chance to capitalize on the popularity and perceived disposability of cell phones, and at the same time, do something positive for the environment and community.
 |
| CEO and founder of The Wireless Alliance Peter Schindler (Photo/TWA) |
Four years ago, Schindler founded The Wireless Alliance (TWA), which has recently partnered with the University of Colorado at Boulder to collect used cell phones. The phones will be sold for parts or refurbishing, and a portion of the money earned will be donated to charities and student groups.
Although he employs just three other men, Schindler says he has big dreams for the future. "I would like to have our 'recycle your wireless phone' logo on the back of every phone with our 1-866 number on there," Schindler says.
 |
| The Wireless Alliance's "Recycle your wireless phone" logo (Image/TWA) |
He has yet to splash his logo across the back of cell phones everywhere, but it is popping up on the CU campus.
The campus cell phone recycling effort, which is being led by the university's recycling director, Jack DeBell, began in late February with a 3-foot-tall plastic box. This box, bearing TWA's logo, has been placed in the University Memorial Center to encourage students to collect their old phones and donate them to the charity or student group of the month.
Profits from the first round of recycled cell phones will go to the Emergency Family Assistance Association, a Boulder-based group that provides emergency assistance for people struggling to pay housing, utilities and other necessary expenses. DeBell says he hopes that the association's high profile will stimulate interest among other non-profits in the community.
While DeBell says he doesn't really know Schindler, he is optimistic about the program.
"The one time that I visited Peter's Boulder location, I was impressed with the flurry of activity. It reminded me of our offices here. There was a sense of urgency, of excitement, and of potential," DeBell said.
Indeed, Schindler seems to be a font of energy and enthusiasm.
"I first went door to door literally asking my neighbors for their old phones. On my old street—Kohler Drive—I got about 1.8 phones per household. If you multiply this by the number of households using wireless phones, you get between 700 million to 1 billion out-of-use handsets in the United States alone," he said.
Schindler officially started TWA in January 2002. His first client was Midwest Wireless, a cell phone provider that serves people in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
TWA placed drop boxes in Midwest Wireless stores where customers could recycle their old phones.
"We're quite pleased with his performance and use him as our sole source of liquidation and recycling," said Tim Johnson, the Product Distribution Supervisor for Midwest Wireless.
Although he couldn't put a number on it, Johnson estimated that the recycling program has raised "hundreds of thousands of dollars," which the company then donates to non-profits like United Way and the American Cancer Society.
Johnson said that TWA is an extension of Schindler's personal values, and that it "stands for what he stands for."
"Peter is, among other things, extremely helpful. He is the type of person who will go out of his way to make things happen for you," says Johnson. "He is a generous person with his time and resources."
TWA has also developed a postage-paid mail-back program to encourage people to recycle cell phones they've stashed in drawers and closets. Midwest Wireless and KALW radio in Schindler's hometown of San Francisco are both using the mailing program.
Schindler says he comes from a long line of inventors including his mother, Anita, who developed Brainwash, which he says is the first café-laundromat in San Francisco, and his father, Robert, who retired from the University of California at San Francisco after a career spent advancing cochlear implant technology, which can help some deaf people hear.
Schindler recalls having always had a passion for art and music. He studied art history as a student at CU. After graduating in 1996, Schindler spent a brief time in his home state of California before returning to Colorado to work in the music industry. He worked for a Boulder company that managed the Greyboy Allstars, a band out of San Diego whose music can be heard in the film Zero Effect.
"Then after a while the music industry didn't pay for what it required. So, I got into cell phones. Once I realized the value of used phones and the good I could do by collecting them for donation—environmental reasons, etcetera—I went with that," Schindler said.
According to Schindler, his "stab at the American Dream" has been successful. Although he refused to say what his profits were in 2005, Schindler says that the money generated from selling the collected cell phones to be melted down or refurbished totaled as much as $4.2 million one year. The average inflow, he says, is about $3 million per year.
TWA pays part of that money back to its partners, who can earn 5 cents to more than $75 a phone, but tend to average $2 per phone, says Schindler. He declined to say what percentage of TWA's income is paid back to charities, but says his clients are happy.
"Generally, we like to give back 20 percent of the collection total at the end as a bonus. It is a strategy that has separated me from my competitors when dealing with non-profits," Schindler said. "They love it."
While he wouldn't say if TWA is out of the red and making a profit, records from his 2005 divorce suggest that the company is still in debt. Both he and his ex-wife were responsible for paying up to $100,000 towards the company's debt.
Nestled beside the Avery Brewery in a small warehouse in East Boulder, operating with only four sets of hands, TWA is earning enough to pay Schindler what he calls a "modest" income. According to his divorce records, that totaled $100,776 in 2005.
If trends in the wireless industry continue as they have in recent years, TWA faces a bright financial future.
Over the last 20 years, the number of wireless subscribers in the United States has risen from about 203,600 people to nearly 195 million people, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
Cell phones have become a valuable tool in American society. However, wireless companies in the United States commonly mark down new cell phones and include the cost in their wireless plan, which makes them appear cheaper than they really are. This also makes them seem more disposable in the eyes of consumers.
In fact, most phones are only used for 18 months before being replaced with newer models, according to a study by Inform Inc., called "Waste in the Wireless World." The high turnover of phones in the United States is generating an estimated 130 million cell phones or 65,000 tons of waste per year.
Many of these phones wind up in landfills where they can become an environmental hazard. Like other electronic equipment, or e-waste, cell phones contain a number of heavy metals that could leach out and contaminate ground water.
A 2004 EPA-sponsored study found that nearly three-quarters of the 38 cell phones tested released enough lead to be considered toxic waste by the government when exposed to landfill-like conditions. Timothy G. Townsend, an associate professor in environmental engineering at the University of Florida, led the study.
"They (the public) should not be concerned about any grave threat to the environment by disposal of (cell phones) in modern lined landfills," Townsend wrote in an e-mail. "But, it is certainly understandable to in general be concerned where wastes that contain toxic chemicals are disposed and whether we should be finding alternatives to toxic chemicals in our products and whether we should do more to recycle them."
At TWA, the two men who do the grunt work of recycling have the task of disassembling cell phones. They check to see that the phone works, erase the memory, take out the batteries, and grind up the sim card, which contains personal information like calendars and friends' phone numbers.
Phones that can be resold are carefully catalogued and sorted into storage bins. Those phones that have become obsolete are tossed into a cavernous box containing thousands of other rejected phones.
Schindler's recycling box of 1990s behemoths will be sent to Reldan Metals Inc., where the phones will be shredded and processed to collect metals like gold, platinum, lead, silver and palladium.
According to Schindler, one ton of ancient cell phones might yield $4,000 to $5,000 in precious metals including gold, platinum, silver and palladium, as well as copper and lead. The metals extracted from cell phones might be used to make CDs, underwire bras, drills, tire irons, sandals, remote control cars, even singing bass trophies, says Schindler.
He estimates that 40 percent of the more than 20,000 phones that TWA collected in February went straight to the recycle box. The newer models in Schindler's warehouse are sold each month to companies that refurbish the phones and resell them to customers using a prepaid wireless service.
Schindler doesn't see the market slowing any time in the near future.
"I hope that I can continue this business of recycling and keep it changing like a chameleon with the technology," Schindler said. "I hope to educate as many people as possible about the right thing to do with their phones."
Forest Service plan would sell prime recreational land near Boulder
By Karen Romer
Looking west from Wendy Redal's backyard, the snow-covered slopes of Eldora Ski Area come into view. The pine and fir covered face of Mount Pisgah lies to the southwest and the brown slopes of Sugarloaf Mountain to the north.
The beautiful, unobstructed views from her home in the Sugar Loaf community are what first attracted Redal and her husband to this area. But the views may not be unobstructed for long under a federal plan to sell public land.
"You just don't expect that the public land around you might be sold," Redal said.
Redal's home sits on a long, skinny strip of land sandwiched between two parcels of adjacent Roosevelt National Forest. If the Bush administration's proposal to sell 300,000 acres of U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service land is passed, about 720 acres in the Sugar Loaf community may be on the chopping block, including the open space next to Redal's home.
Each of the Forest Service's nine regional offices were notified by the Washington D.C. office to select parcels of land that are isolated, difficult and expensive to manage, said John Bustos Jr., public affairs officer for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Regional Office.
Bustos cited another item on the list of criteria – parcels that are surrounded by private land. Public and private lands are often intermixed in national forests, which makes them more difficult to manage and gives rise to access issues, Bustos said. This criterion fits the Sugar Loaf community's layout.
Residents, recreational groups, land planning organizations and Boulder County Commissioners strongly oppose the Forest Service's proposal. At question is why certain lands in Boulder County, which have obvious recreational and scenic value and are important wildlife and access areas, have been singled out and what will happen to these lands if the proposal goes through.
The Bush administration hopes to raise $800 million by selling isolated parcels of national forest land, which will be used to fund rural schools and county road projects nationwide. Set to expire Sept. 30, 2006, President Bush's proposed 2007 budget would extend the Secure Rural and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 for another five years.
The Rural Schools Act offsets some of the financial burdens that rural counties face due to decreased federal timber sales. Historically these counties received a cut of timber sale profits and have come to rely on federal subsidies to fund rural school and road projects.
In Colorado, more than 23,000 acres in 11 national forests are being considered. Of the 137,000 acres in Roosevelt and Arapaho National Forests in Boulder County, 2,300 acres or 1.7 percent would be sold, according to Mike Johnson, lands and mineral specialist with the Boulder Ranger District.
About 600 residents live in the Sugar Loaf community, which is located in the foothills several miles west of Boulder and covers 19 square miles of forested land that is sprinkled with homes.
"There are a couple of mountain subdivisions, but most people in this area live on several acres of land," Redal said.
Land in the Sugar Loaf community is more fragmented than any other area managed by the Boulder Ranger District, according to the Forest Service's land and resource management website.
"So what they're saying, that it is really fragments of public land, is true," said Redal, noting that this may be one reason why so many acres in the Sugar Loaf area have been singled out.
Redal and her husband own three acres, a long, thin stretch of land about 150 feet wide that is a former mining claim. Many of her neighbors' homes are similarly situated.
"It's an old land-use layout in terms of the mixture of private and public lands," Redal said.
"It's true that there's a focus on former mining claims or strips," said Pat Shanks, chairman of PLAN-Boulder County, a nonprofit political action group in Boulder. Perhaps these strips have a little less value to the Forest Service in terms of pristine open space, Shanks said.
Thousands of former mining claims dot the mountains west of Boulder. Under the Mining Act of 1872, prospectors who discovered gold and other valuable surface minerals could stake claims for these deposits and buy the land for $2.50 or $5.00 an acre. Many small mining towns, including Ward, Magnolia and Sugar Loaf, sprung up in Colorado as a result. Many of these former mining claims are now privately owned.
Bob Ruston, a long-time resident of the Sugar Loaf community, calls these former mining claims "picnic spots." These strips of land, which range in shape from rectangular to long, skinny stretches, and are a good place to get out of your car, spread a blanket and have a picnic on a beautiful summer day, Ruston said.
In 1968 Ruston bought three acres from a friend and built his first home here. Several years after moving to the Sugar Loaf area Ruston discovered Dream Canyon.
"It just knocked my socks off," said Ruston, recalling seeing Dream Canyon for the first time. "It's so vast and crennelated."
Dream Canyon is one of the parcels currently proposed for sale by the Forest Service.
The Dream Canyon trailhead is a 5-minute walk from Redal's home and a short distance from Ruston's place. Ruston owns three plots of land, two of which lie several hundred feet uphill from North Boulder Creek, which winds through the steep canyon walls of Dream Canyon before cascading down Boulder Falls where it meets Middle Boulder Creek.
Tucked just off Boulder Canyon, Dream Canyon has numerous bolted routes and steep granite buttresses that make it a popular climbing area. Ruston has talked to climbers ranging from adventurous youths to spry retirees who come to Dream Canyon from as far away as Europe and Asia.
"Often on the 4th of July there are about 200 people (at Dream Canyon), Ruston said.
The Access Fund, a Boulder-based organization committed to maintaining and preserving public rock climbing sites, has identified Dream Canyon and Bell Buttress, a towering wall located just beyond Boulder Falls, on Forest Service maps. In their letter to the Forest Service, the Access Fund requested that any parcels used for climbing, biking, hiking and other recreational purposes be taken off the list. The organization cited the Forest Service's proposal as a short-term fix that would take thousands of acres of recreational lands and natural areas out of the public's hands.
Like Dream Canyon, several of the identified parcels are located within 'high-use recreation areas,' according to the Forest Service's website. These include Eldora Ski Area and Boulder Creek, Caribou and Sugar Loaf geographic areas.
Two 240-acre parcels in the Sugar Loaf community are located in the Boulder Falls vicinity, which is designated as a critical wildlife corridor and an environmental conservation area under Boulder County's Comprehensive Plan.
Just one and one-half miles past Boulder Falls along the cliffs of Boulder Canyon is golden eagle territory. Golden eagles nest in the upper cliffs of several popular rock climbing areas, including Eagle Rock, Security Risk and Blob Rock.
Other areas in Boulder County are also targeted. Four parcels are located in the Magnolia Road area south of Boulder Creek, a popular mountain biking trail and an important migration corridor for elk that winter in the area. Another parcel is located in Eldora near one of the entrances to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. And several parcels abut land crossed by the Peak-to-Peak Highway and Caribou Ranch Open Space.
Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., introduced a bill in May 2005, H.R. 2110, to protect the 'open space characteristics' of lands in and adjacent to Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests along Colorado's Front Range. The bill is now undergoing hearings and testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the bill Rep. Udall outlines several key reasons why land along Colorado's Front Range needs to be protected. First, lands in and adjacent to Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests provide important wildlife habitat and numerous recreational opportunities. In addition, these open spaces are vital to Colorado's communities, not only for their scenic beauty, but also for their economic impact. As the population continues to grow along the Front Range and more land is lost to development, open space in Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests will be increasingly used for recreational purposes.
Determining which parcels are on the Forest Service's proposed list is challenging.
"They (Boulder Ranger District) weren't being uncooperative, but they weren't going out of their way to tell us where those parcels were," Shanks said.
So PLAN-Boulder County made their own maps based on data they downloaded from the Forest Service's website. These maps, which are posted on PLAN-Boulder County's website, list the location, size and significance of the public lands in Boulder County.
"In terms of actual boundaries, it's been hard to figure out," said Redal, explaining that she had trouble using the mapping program on the Forest Service's website and difficulty locating the parcels within the Sugar Loaf community.
The act of selling public lands to fund a federal program has been sharply criticized by citizens in Boulder County and politicians at local, state and national levels.
Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo., both oppose the Bush administration's plan to sell public lands to fund a federal program.
"I continue to be very concerned about the Administration's proposal to sell off pieces of America's permanent heritage of public lands as part of a short-term budget issue," said Sen. Salazar in a press release issued Mar. 29, 2006.
Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., coauthors of the Secure Rural and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, introduced legislation to reinstate the program at its current funding level without resorting to land sales.
Boulder County Commissioners Ben Pearlman, Tom Mayer and Will Toor cited the proposal as being fiscally irresponsible in their letter to Dale Bosworth, forest service chief. 'The federal government has an obligation to live within its means, not sell off a permanent public asset to pay current operating costs of government.'
There is also widespread disapproval among citizens, politicians and local organizations about the Forest Service's process for selecting which public lands would be sold.
The regional offices received quick directions and very little input about how to go about the process, said Jim Maxwell, media relations officer for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Regional Office.
"Our lands people at the regional office sat down with maps and determined where isolated and scattered parcels are located in relation to forest service lands," Maxwell said. "Our people were only given a few days to do that."
Maxwell agrees that there's been a lot of controversy over the proposed bill.
"It's facing a very uncertain future," he said.
Agricultural Undersecretary Rey contends that the Rural Schools Act was never meant to be permanent. Legislation was passed to help rural counties transition from relying on federal timber sales to finding other economic sources to generate revenues. Rey estimates that the Forest Service will only have to sell about 175,000 acres out of the proposed 300,000 acres to meet its goal of $800 million.
The first cut of national forest lands proposed for sale was included in the President's Feb. 2006 budget proposal and published in the Federal Registry on Feb. 25, 2006. A public comment period, originally set from Feb. 28 to Mar. 30, was recently extended until May 1 to give the public an additional month to comment on the controversial proposal.
"So far we have received around 4,000 comments," said Undersecretary Rey during a telenews conference with the press on Mar. 29, 2006.
Though Rey didn't know the exact breakdown of the letters, he estimated that at least three-fourths of the letters are against the proposal.
"Lots of people we're hoping will comment on specific parcels," said Maxwell so the Forest Service can revisit the list and make necessary changes.
After the comment period ends, the Forest Service will take the comments they receive into consideration while forming their final list. If Congress approves the proposal, they will get very specific about how many parcels will be sold and the method in which they will be sold, Maxwell explained.
The Boulder Ranger District will not speculate on how the Forest Service would implement the proposal until it is given that authority by Congress. Based on the proposal submitted to Congress, the Forest Service would complete an environmental analysis, Johnson said. An environmental analysis is used to learn about important issues and concerns, find alternatives for completing the project and determine the environmental impacts of those alternatives.
It's uncertain exactly how the land would be sold, though the Forest Service says that the parcels would be sold at fair market value as required by law. Fair market value is determined through an appraisal process based on the value of similar properties.
Historically the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have conveyed lands that are difficult or uneconomical to manage through land exchanges rather than sales, according to the Colorado Bureau of Land Management's website.
Under the Bush administration's proposal, this policy would change. Not only would it be more difficult for Boulder County to acquire open space through land swaps, selling national forest lands would result in fragmented ownership patterns – something Boulder Parks and Open Space has worked for years to correct.
Based on a Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement completed in 1986, Boulder County Commissioners decided it was in the county's best interest to acquire all lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. As Boulder County's population continues to grow and push outwards toward the foothills, the county must deal with increased residential development, right-of-way issues and pending Recreation and Public Purposes Act applications.
The Recreation and Public Purposes Act, administered by the Bureau of Land Management, authorizes state and local governments to purchase land at low costs for recreational and public purposes. Under the act, government entities can purchase up to 640 acres per year for recreational uses, such as parks and campgrounds, and another 640 acres for public purposes, such as municipal facilities and schools.
The Bureau of Land Management has agreed to several land exchanges with Boulder County, which involves small tracts of land, namely old mining claims, being exchanged for lands that benefit the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Land exchanges and private conservation easements have created more cohesive patterns of ownership and improved Boulder County's ability to effectively manage its open space program.
During the first exchange, which took place in March 2003, Boulder County acquired 705 acres of public land and the federal government received two parcels, a 165-acre parcel in Boulder County and a 484-acre parcel in Teller County.
In the Forest Service's Feb. 28, 2006 posting on the Federal Register, the Forest Service admits that it hasn't surveyed many of the selected parcels for 'natural or cultural resources specific to this proposal.' This raises the question of who would be responsible for surveying and assessing the land if it's sold.
Ruston estimates it would cost around $100,000 to $200,000 just to survey the land around his place. The Forest Service could send out their own surveying team to each identified parcel, but that process could take years, Ruston said. Instead Ruston surmises the Forest Service will probably leave the surveying process up to the prospective property owner.
"If they do a slipshod job and just draw lines on the map, they'll leave it up to the person who buys it," Ruston said.
This could be an expensive task. While Boulder County Commissioners paid for the surveying and appraisal costs under its land exchange agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, it would be far too expensive for the county to purchase isolated parcels of Forest Service lands at fair market value, especially if appraisal costs are heaped on.
The Boulder County Commissioners stated in their letter to Forest Service Chief Bosworth that working with the federal government to preserve open space through land swaps is an inefficient process. 'The costs of closing on federal land, including survey and appraisal costs, will significantly reduce any return to the Federal treasury,' the Boulder County Commissioners stated in their letter.
Since the passage of the Rural Schools Act in 1999, $1.9 billion of federal funds have been allocated to eligible counties. By 2013, the only guaranteed payments that these counties would receive would be 25 percent of timber sales from forest revenues. The payments will be capped, gradually adjusted downwards over the next five years and phased out by 2013, according to information on the Forest Service's website.
During 2000 to 2006 allocated funds were distributed to counties where Forest Service lands are located. If the Rural Schools Act is extended, these payments would instead go to counties that have been most affected by reduced timber sales.
Though Forest Service lands in Colorado would account for 7.2 percent of the proposed 300,000 acres, only 1.67 percent of the allocated funds would reach the state. And Boulder County wouldn't receive any of these funds.
If the public land next to Redal's home were sold, the property value of her home would decrease. But Redal isn't bothered so much about this aspect. Her main concern is that she'd lose the open space surrounding her home and the beautiful views she loves.
"So this is what President Bush wants to sell – negligible pieces of land with no scenic value," said Redal, with irony in her voice while gazing upward at the steep, creviced walls of Dream Canyon.
Looking west from Wendy Redal's backyard, the snow-covered slopes of Eldora Ski Area come into view. The pine and fir covered face of Mount Pisgah lies to the southwest and the brown slopes of Sugarloaf Mountain to the north.
The beautiful, unobstructed views from her home in the Sugar Loaf community are what first attracted Redal and her husband to this area. But the views may not be unobstructed for long under a federal plan to sell public land.
"You just don't expect that the public land around you might be sold," Redal said.
 |
| Hundreds of acres of public land could be sold near Sugarloaf Mountain (Photo/Wendy Worrall Redal) |
Redal's home sits on a long, skinny strip of land sandwiched between two parcels of adjacent Roosevelt National Forest. If the Bush administration's proposal to sell 300,000 acres of U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service land is passed, about 720 acres in the Sugar Loaf community may be on the chopping block, including the open space next to Redal's home.
Each of the Forest Service's nine regional offices were notified by the Washington D.C. office to select parcels of land that are isolated, difficult and expensive to manage, said John Bustos Jr., public affairs officer for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Regional Office.
Bustos cited another item on the list of criteria – parcels that are surrounded by private land. Public and private lands are often intermixed in national forests, which makes them more difficult to manage and gives rise to access issues, Bustos said. This criterion fits the Sugar Loaf community's layout.
Residents, recreational groups, land planning organizations and Boulder County Commissioners strongly oppose the Forest Service's proposal. At question is why certain lands in Boulder County, which have obvious recreational and scenic value and are important wildlife and access areas, have been singled out and what will happen to these lands if the proposal goes through.
The Bush administration hopes to raise $800 million by selling isolated parcels of national forest land, which will be used to fund rural schools and county road projects nationwide. Set to expire Sept. 30, 2006, President Bush's proposed 2007 budget would extend the Secure Rural and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 for another five years.
The Rural Schools Act offsets some of the financial burdens that rural counties face due to decreased federal timber sales. Historically these counties received a cut of timber sale profits and have come to rely on federal subsidies to fund rural school and road projects.
In Colorado, more than 23,000 acres in 11 national forests are being considered. Of the 137,000 acres in Roosevelt and Arapaho National Forests in Boulder County, 2,300 acres or 1.7 percent would be sold, according to Mike Johnson, lands and mineral specialist with the Boulder Ranger District.
About 600 residents live in the Sugar Loaf community, which is located in the foothills several miles west of Boulder and covers 19 square miles of forested land that is sprinkled with homes.
"There are a couple of mountain subdivisions, but most people in this area live on several acres of land," Redal said.
Land in the Sugar Loaf community is more fragmented than any other area managed by the Boulder Ranger District, according to the Forest Service's land and resource management website.
"So what they're saying, that it is really fragments of public land, is true," said Redal, noting that this may be one reason why so many acres in the Sugar Loaf area have been singled out.
Redal and her husband own three acres, a long, thin stretch of land about 150 feet wide that is a former mining claim. Many of her neighbors' homes are similarly situated.
 |
| The Redal family's home sits amid fragmented parcels of public and private land (Photo/Wendy Worrall Redal) |
"It's an old land-use layout in terms of the mixture of private and public lands," Redal said.
"It's true that there's a focus on former mining claims or strips," said Pat Shanks, chairman of PLAN-Boulder County, a nonprofit political action group in Boulder. Perhaps these strips have a little less value to the Forest Service in terms of pristine open space, Shanks said.
Thousands of former mining claims dot the mountains west of Boulder. Under the Mining Act of 1872, prospectors who discovered gold and other valuable surface minerals could stake claims for these deposits and buy the land for $2.50 or $5.00 an acre. Many small mining towns, including Ward, Magnolia and Sugar Loaf, sprung up in Colorado as a result. Many of these former mining claims are now privately owned.
Bob Ruston, a long-time resident of the Sugar Loaf community, calls these former mining claims "picnic spots." These strips of land, which range in shape from rectangular to long, skinny stretches, and are a good place to get out of your car, spread a blanket and have a picnic on a beautiful summer day, Ruston said.
In 1968 Ruston bought three acres from a friend and built his first home here. Several years after moving to the Sugar Loaf area Ruston discovered Dream Canyon.
"It just knocked my socks off," said Ruston, recalling seeing Dream Canyon for the first time. "It's so vast and crennelated."
 |
| Dream Canyon, a popular rock-climbing area above Boulder Falls, is slated to be sold by the Forest Service (Photo/Rockclimbing.com) |
Dream Canyon is one of the parcels currently proposed for sale by the Forest Service.
The Dream Canyon trailhead is a 5-minute walk from Redal's home and a short distance from Ruston's place. Ruston owns three plots of land, two of which lie several hundred feet uphill from North Boulder Creek, which winds through the steep canyon walls of Dream Canyon before cascading down Boulder Falls where it meets Middle Boulder Creek.
Tucked just off Boulder Canyon, Dream Canyon has numerous bolted routes and steep granite buttresses that make it a popular climbing area. Ruston has talked to climbers ranging from adventurous youths to spry retirees who come to Dream Canyon from as far away as Europe and Asia.
"Often on the 4th of July there are about 200 people (at Dream Canyon), Ruston said.
The Access Fund, a Boulder-based organization committed to maintaining and preserving public rock climbing sites, has identified Dream Canyon and Bell Buttress, a towering wall located just beyond Boulder Falls, on Forest Service maps. In their letter to the Forest Service, the Access Fund requested that any parcels used for climbing, biking, hiking and other recreational purposes be taken off the list. The organization cited the Forest Service's proposal as a short-term fix that would take thousands of acres of recreational lands and natural areas out of the public's hands.
Like Dream Canyon, several of the identified parcels are located within 'high-use recreation areas,' according to the Forest Service's website. These include Eldora Ski Area and Boulder Creek, Caribou and Sugar Loaf geographic areas.
Two 240-acre parcels in the Sugar Loaf community are located in the Boulder Falls vicinity, which is designated as a critical wildlife corridor and an environmental conservation area under Boulder County's Comprehensive Plan.
Just one and one-half miles past Boulder Falls along the cliffs of Boulder Canyon is golden eagle territory. Golden eagles nest in the upper cliffs of several popular rock climbing areas, including Eagle Rock, Security Risk and Blob Rock.
Other areas in Boulder County are also targeted. Four parcels are located in the Magnolia Road area south of Boulder Creek, a popular mountain biking trail and an important migration corridor for elk that winter in the area. Another parcel is located in Eldora near one of the entrances to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. And several parcels abut land crossed by the Peak-to-Peak Highway and Caribou Ranch Open Space.
Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., introduced a bill in May 2005, H.R. 2110, to protect the 'open space characteristics' of lands in and adjacent to Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests along Colorado's Front Range. The bill is now undergoing hearings and testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the bill Rep. Udall outlines several key reasons why land along Colorado's Front Range needs to be protected. First, lands in and adjacent to Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests provide important wildlife habitat and numerous recreational opportunities. In addition, these open spaces are vital to Colorado's communities, not only for their scenic beauty, but also for their economic impact. As the population continues to grow along the Front Range and more land is lost to development, open space in Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests will be increasingly used for recreational purposes.
Determining which parcels are on the Forest Service's proposed list is challenging.
"They (Boulder Ranger District) weren't being uncooperative, but they weren't going out of their way to tell us where those parcels were," Shanks said.
So PLAN-Boulder County made their own maps based on data they downloaded from the Forest Service's website. These maps, which are posted on PLAN-Boulder County's website, list the location, size and significance of the public lands in Boulder County.
"In terms of actual boundaries, it's been hard to figure out," said Redal, explaining that she had trouble using the mapping program on the Forest Service's website and difficulty locating the parcels within the Sugar Loaf community.
The act of selling public lands to fund a federal program has been sharply criticized by citizens in Boulder County and politicians at local, state and national levels.
Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo., both oppose the Bush administration's plan to sell public lands to fund a federal program.
"I continue to be very concerned about the Administration's proposal to sell off pieces of America's permanent heritage of public lands as part of a short-term budget issue," said Sen. Salazar in a press release issued Mar. 29, 2006.
Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., coauthors of the Secure Rural and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, introduced legislation to reinstate the program at its current funding level without resorting to land sales.
Boulder County Commissioners Ben Pearlman, Tom Mayer and Will Toor cited the proposal as being fiscally irresponsible in their letter to Dale Bosworth, forest service chief. 'The federal government has an obligation to live within its means, not sell off a permanent public asset to pay current operating costs of government.'
There is also widespread disapproval among citizens, politicians and local organizations about the Forest Service's process for selecting which public lands would be sold.
The regional offices received quick directions and very little input about how to go about the process, said Jim Maxwell, media relations officer for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Regional Office.
"Our lands people at the regional office sat down with maps and determined where isolated and scattered parcels are located in relation to forest service lands," Maxwell said. "Our people were only given a few days to do that."
Maxwell agrees that there's been a lot of controversy over the proposed bill.
"It's facing a very uncertain future," he said.
Agricultural Undersecretary Rey contends that the Rural Schools Act was never meant to be permanent. Legislation was passed to help rural counties transition from relying on federal timber sales to finding other economic sources to generate revenues. Rey estimates that the Forest Service will only have to sell about 175,000 acres out of the proposed 300,000 acres to meet its goal of $800 million.
The first cut of national forest lands proposed for sale was included in the President's Feb. 2006 budget proposal and published in the Federal Registry on Feb. 25, 2006. A public comment period, originally set from Feb. 28 to Mar. 30, was recently extended until May 1 to give the public an additional month to comment on the controversial proposal.
"So far we have received around 4,000 comments," said Undersecretary Rey during a telenews conference with the press on Mar. 29, 2006.
Though Rey didn't know the exact breakdown of the letters, he estimated that at least three-fourths of the letters are against the proposal.
"Lots of people we're hoping will comment on specific parcels," said Maxwell so the Forest Service can revisit the list and make necessary changes.
After the comment period ends, the Forest Service will take the comments they receive into consideration while forming their final list. If Congress approves the proposal, they will get very specific about how many parcels will be sold and the method in which they will be sold, Maxwell explained.
The Boulder Ranger District will not speculate on how the Forest Service would implement the proposal until it is given that authority by Congress. Based on the proposal submitted to Congress, the Forest Service would complete an environmental analysis, Johnson said. An environmental analysis is used to learn about important issues and concerns, find alternatives for completing the project and determine the environmental impacts of those alternatives.
It's uncertain exactly how the land would be sold, though the Forest Service says that the parcels would be sold at fair market value as required by law. Fair market value is determined through an appraisal process based on the value of similar properties.
Historically the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have conveyed lands that are difficult or uneconomical to manage through land exchanges rather than sales, according to the Colorado Bureau of Land Management's website.
Under the Bush administration's proposal, this policy would change. Not only would it be more difficult for Boulder County to acquire open space through land swaps, selling national forest lands would result in fragmented ownership patterns – something Boulder Parks and Open Space has worked for years to correct.
Based on a Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement completed in 1986, Boulder County Commissioners decided it was in the county's best interest to acquire all lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. As Boulder County's population continues to grow and push outwards toward the foothills, the county must deal with increased residential development, right-of-way issues and pending Recreation and Public Purposes Act applications.
The Recreation and Public Purposes Act, administered by the Bureau of Land Management, authorizes state and local governments to purchase land at low costs for recreational and public purposes. Under the act, government entities can purchase up to 640 acres per year for recreational uses, such as parks and campgrounds, and another 640 acres for public purposes, such as municipal facilities and schools.
The Bureau of Land Management has agreed to several land exchanges with Boulder County, which involves small tracts of land, namely old mining claims, being exchanged for lands that benefit the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Land exchanges and private conservation easements have created more cohesive patterns of ownership and improved Boulder County's ability to effectively manage its open space program.
During the first exchange, which took place in March 2003, Boulder County acquired 705 acres of public land and the federal government received two parcels, a 165-acre parcel in Boulder County and a 484-acre parcel in Teller County.
In the Forest Service's Feb. 28, 2006 posting on the Federal Register, the Forest Service admits that it hasn't surveyed many of the selected parcels for 'natural or cultural resources specific to this proposal.' This raises the question of who would be responsible for surveying and assessing the land if it's sold.
Ruston estimates it would cost around $100,000 to $200,000 just to survey the land around his place. The Forest Service could send out their own surveying team to each identified parcel, but that process could take years, Ruston said. Instead Ruston surmises the Forest Service will probably leave the surveying process up to the prospective property owner.
"If they do a slipshod job and just draw lines on the map, they'll leave it up to the person who buys it," Ruston said.
This could be an expensive task. While Boulder County Commissioners paid for the surveying and appraisal costs under its land exchange agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, it would be far too expensive for the county to purchase isolated parcels of Forest Service lands at fair market value, especially if appraisal costs are heaped on.
The Boulder County Commissioners stated in their letter to Forest Service Chief Bosworth that working with the federal government to preserve open space through land swaps is an inefficient process. 'The costs of closing on federal land, including survey and appraisal costs, will significantly reduce any return to the Federal treasury,' the Boulder County Commissioners stated in their letter.
Since the passage of the Rural Schools Act in 1999, $1.9 billion of federal funds have been allocated to eligible counties. By 2013, the only guaranteed payments that these counties would receive would be 25 percent of timber sales from forest revenues. The payments will be capped, gradually adjusted downwards over the next five years and phased out by 2013, according to information on the Forest Service's website.
During 2000 to 2006 allocated funds were distributed to counties where Forest Service lands are located. If the Rural Schools Act is extended, these payments would instead go to counties that have been most affected by reduced timber sales.
Though Forest Service lands in Colorado would account for 7.2 percent of the proposed 300,000 acres, only 1.67 percent of the allocated funds would reach the state. And Boulder County wouldn't receive any of these funds.
If the public land next to Redal's home were sold, the property value of her home would decrease. But Redal isn't bothered so much about this aspect. Her main concern is that she'd lose the open space surrounding her home and the beautiful views she loves.
"So this is what President Bush wants to sell – negligible pieces of land with no scenic value," said Redal, with irony in her voice while gazing upward at the steep, creviced walls of Dream Canyon.
Law Seminar to Colorado Plateau Leaves Fellows Spellbound
By Wendy Worrall Redal
On a cool March night atop Black Mesa, a fire crackled against the dark sky. To a circle of rapt listeners, Vernon Masayesva recounted Hopi legends while his guests ate the thin, parchment-like bread traditionally served to visitors, made from blue corn and soot. Every so often his cousin Jerry would stir the fire, sending sparks swirling up around Vernon's head, rising toward the stars above.
The mesa, the guests learned, is the center of the earth for the Hopi people who have lived there for hundreds of years. Beneath it lies a breathing aquifer, drawing in rain and snow and exhaling it in the form of springs. The springs are breathing holes, passageways from the mesa's surface to Paatuuwaqatsi, the sacred water world below.
Out here on the Hopi Reservation, high atop the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona, Don Hopey was a long way from his Pittsburgh home, where he is the environment reporter for the Post-Gazette. Here, he was a student, and Masayesva was his teacher for the evening.
As president of the Black Mesa Trust, Masayesva heads an organization whose mission is to "safeguard, preserve and honor the land and water of Black Mesa." The trust was formed in 1999 by the Hopi people in response to the damage that extensive water withdrawals by the Peabody Coal Company have caused to the Navajo Aquifer beneath Hopi and Navajo lands on the mesa. For nearly 30 years Peabody had been pumping 3.3 million gallons of water a day for its coal slurry operation, causing wells and washes to run dry and ancient springs to vanish, threatening the life and culture of the mesa's inhabitants.
While the Black Mesa Trust relies also on Western science and technology to educate people about environmental impacts, traditional Hopi stories are part of the truth the Trust seeks to impart. For Hopey and the others gathered round the fire, there was power in such poetry.
"It was a magical experience," Hopey said, recalling that night.
As a Ted Scripps Fellow, Hopey visited Black Mesa as part of an 8-day trip around the Colorado Plateau that he and two other fellows participated in during spring break at the University of Colorado. The field tour was a class unlike any other: officially titled Seminar in Advanced Natural Resource Law, the course covered some 2,000 miles of desert, canyon, mountain and mesa while educating students about a range of issues including water, energy, grazing, mining and tribal concerns.
"It was the absolute highlight of the fellowship," said Bebe Crouse, previously National Public Radio's environment editor in Washington, D.C., a position that included a focus on the West.
"No question," Hopey agreed.
Greg Stahl, on leave from the Idaho Mountain Express in Sun Valley where he is the public land and environment reporter, rounded out the Scripps Fellows contingent. The fellows joined 13 CU law students and Professor Charles Wilkinson for the grand high-country loop that took them to Durango, Mexican Hat, Lake Powell, Cedar Mesa, Window Rock, the Grand Canyon, Paria Plateau and Jackass Canyon before returning to Boulder.
Wilkinson, who is a Distinguished Professor of Law at CU and an expert on natural resource and public lands issues, has been leading the field seminar for ____ years.
Wilkinson himself is nearly as charismatic a draw as the Plateau's enticing landscapes, according to his students. Typically found in jeans and cowboy boots, admired for his integrity and beloved for his sharp good humor, Wilkinson is the antithesis of the uptight lawyer. His lectures are more captivating narrative than legalese, and the wide-open spaces of the Plateau are a suitably appropriate setting for his teaching.
"Charles Wilkinson's field classes are legendary," said Crouse, who had heard of the professor before arriving at CU to begin her fellowship.
Like Crouse, Hopey was impressed with past fellows' recommendations of his introductory course on natural resources law. After taking that class with her and Stahl during the fall semester, he jumped at the chance to visit the Plateau with Wilkinson.
"He's someone who has a reputation and knowledge of this area that's unparalleled," Hopey said. "Every day on this field tour he gave us these gifts of expertise – from meetings with tribal leaders to out-of-the-way places like Jackass Canyon where tourists never go…His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious."
"He's so completely passionate about this place," said Crouse.
For Stahl, study in the field brought issues alive in a way that doesn't happen in the confines of a classroom.
"There's nothing like cementing textbook reading by seeing what's happening on the ground, " said Stahl. "I can't overstate how much the trip helped me more fully understand the issues we discussed in the seminar."
"It makes everything more real," Crouse agreed, who was able to see places she had assigned stories on yet had never been to, such as Black Mesa and the Navajo Reservation.
Stahl found the camaraderie with the other students equally absorbing. "The classroom atmosphere is sometimes stifling, and it was really nice to get to know people on a more personal level. And that, of course, leads to a freer exchange of ideas."
Given the logistics of the trip, it was inevitable the students would get to know one another well. The group of 17 drove together from Boulder in Wilkinson's SUV, a pick-up truck and several Subarus, staying en route at motels where they sometimes had to share beds, given tight space and a tight budget.
While some of the time they were inside listening to PowerPoint presentations by officials, most of the learning took place outdoors amid the remarkable geological and cultural features of the Plateau.
A moving experience for Crouse was exploring Moon House on Utah's remote Cedar Mesa. The group walked in to the ancient Puebloan ruin with archaeologists and a BLM administrator, and it was "as if we'd discovered it," she said.
"It was a spectacularly beautiful place, even without the ruins," said Crouse, describing the water that had spilled down the face of the slick rock and frozen, leaving icy waterfalls on the stone walls. "It was a really magical, spiritual feeling in there."
The fellows also reveled in hikes up Utah's Dirty Devil River and into Jackass Canyon, which were no small adventures.
The group's guide from the Glen Canyon Institute said, "We're gonna take this little hike – your feet might get a little wet," Crouse said, describing the Dirty Devil trip. They ended up forging their way upstream, pushing against the current, the water above their knees. The reward was an excursion into a maze of swirling slickrock and crenellated canyon walls.
Jackass Canyon was equally dramatic.
Hopey recounted the descent, accompanied by a learned naturalist, into the narrow slot canyon that plummets to the Colorado River on the floor of the Grand Canyon below.
"We had to negotiate these huge rocks that had tumbled down between the canyon walls, which were 150 to 200 feet high."
Stahl reflected that "while the educational parts of the trip were enlightening," it was during such recreational outings that the group really bonded, tossing ideas around in a casual atmosphere while sharing the majesty of the Plateau's natural marvels.
All three fellows concurred that the field tour provided experiences that will transform them as journalists.
Stahl, who is returning to Idaho, comes away with deeper insight into the resource and tribal issues that comprise a fair portion of his beat. There are implications from the Southern Ute water rights issues he studied on the trip, including the massive Animas La Plata dam project, that are significant for his coverage of the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock reservations.
Crouse, too, said she understands "a lot more of the complexities of tribal issues" as a result of her exposure to Wilkinson's classes and the in-person meetings with tribal leaders during the tour.
Especially with regard to water and energy issues, "the tribes are players now," said Hopey. "The energy resources they have on the reservations has given them the power to be players," and that adds a whole new layer in need of understanding, the fellows have come to recognize.
"It's hard to get really good, deep coverage" of the tribes, said Crouse, who appreciates the challenges created by the "cultural divide." "It's a very delicate, difficult little dance," she said, acknowledging she is now more empathetic to reporters who are trying to cover tribal issues.
She also found the field tour helpful context for her fellowship project, a study of the future of ranching in the West. While her focus has been Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington, she said it was illuminating to "go down and look at the places where they are trying to graze cattle" in the Southwest, where water is actually piped in to sustain the herds.
For Hopey, the exposure to mining issues was most relevant. In Pittsburgh, he is far removed from many Western concerns such as grazing permits and arcane water law, but coal mining in particular is a big story in western Pennsylvania.
"My mining stuff is going to be very much impacted" by the fellowship, Hopey said. He is currently working on a coal mining story that takes off from Vernon's campfire oration, discussing the recent shutdown of the Mojave generating plant and resulting closure of Peabody's Black Mesa Mine.
And there were other unexpected connections on the Colorado Plateau with Hopey's life back in Pittsburgh. As the students were entering the Navajo Council Chambers for a presentation, he spotted a guy with two long braids who happened to be wearing a Steelers tie. Instant bond. Hopey discovered that the fellow fan, a Navajo named Frank Seanez, grew up in Pittsburgh and was now an attorney for the Navajo Nation, representing the tribe from its headquarters in Window Rock.
On the Colorado Plateau, modernity is interwoven with timelessness. Science complements myth in a quest to preserve natural resources and ancient ways of life. Policy both protects, and potentially threatens, vulnerable landscapes. These and other lessons the Fellows learned in their sojourn through the pink sandstone and cobalt skies of this vast high desert. While the land may have appeared parched and tormented, beneath their feet streams breathed, and springs bubbled sacred secrets to the surface.
On a cool March night atop Black Mesa, a fire crackled against the dark sky. To a circle of rapt listeners, Vernon Masayesva recounted Hopi legends while his guests ate the thin, parchment-like bread traditionally served to visitors, made from blue corn and soot. Every so often his cousin Jerry would stir the fire, sending sparks swirling up around Vernon's head, rising toward the stars above.
The mesa, the guests learned, is the center of the earth for the Hopi people who have lived there for hundreds of years. Beneath it lies a breathing aquifer, drawing in rain and snow and exhaling it in the form of springs. The springs are breathing holes, passageways from the mesa's surface to Paatuuwaqatsi, the sacred water world below.
Out here on the Hopi Reservation, high atop the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona, Don Hopey was a long way from his Pittsburgh home, where he is the environment reporter for the Post-Gazette. Here, he was a student, and Masayesva was his teacher for the evening.
 |
| Don Hopey in Jackass Canyon (Photo/Greg Stahl) |
As president of the Black Mesa Trust, Masayesva heads an organization whose mission is to "safeguard, preserve and honor the land and water of Black Mesa." The trust was formed in 1999 by the Hopi people in response to the damage that extensive water withdrawals by the Peabody Coal Company have caused to the Navajo Aquifer beneath Hopi and Navajo lands on the mesa. For nearly 30 years Peabody had been pumping 3.3 million gallons of water a day for its coal slurry operation, causing wells and washes to run dry and ancient springs to vanish, threatening the life and culture of the mesa's inhabitants.
While the Black Mesa Trust relies also on Western science and technology to educate people about environmental impacts, traditional Hopi stories are part of the truth the Trust seeks to impart. For Hopey and the others gathered round the fire, there was power in such poetry.
"It was a magical experience," Hopey said, recalling that night.
As a Ted Scripps Fellow, Hopey visited Black Mesa as part of an 8-day trip around the Colorado Plateau that he and two other fellows participated in during spring break at the University of Colorado. The field tour was a class unlike any other: officially titled Seminar in Advanced Natural Resource Law, the course covered some 2,000 miles of desert, canyon, mountain and mesa while educating students about a range of issues including water, energy, grazing, mining and tribal concerns.
"It was the absolute highlight of the fellowship," said Bebe Crouse, previously National Public Radio's environment editor in Washington, D.C., a position that included a focus on the West.
"No question," Hopey agreed.
 |
| Bebe Crouse captures the sounds of the high desert (Photo/Greg Stahl) |
Greg Stahl, on leave from the Idaho Mountain Express in Sun Valley where he is the public land and environment reporter, rounded out the Scripps Fellows contingent. The fellows joined 13 CU law students and Professor Charles Wilkinson for the grand high-country loop that took them to Durango, Mexican Hat, Lake Powell, Cedar Mesa, Window Rock, the Grand Canyon, Paria Plateau and Jackass Canyon before returning to Boulder.
 |
| Greg Stahl surveys the Colorado Plateau |
Wilkinson, who is a Distinguished Professor of Law at CU and an expert on natural resource and public lands issues, has been leading the field seminar for ____ years.
Wilkinson himself is nearly as charismatic a draw as the Plateau's enticing landscapes, according to his students. Typically found in jeans and cowboy boots, admired for his integrity and beloved for his sharp good humor, Wilkinson is the antithesis of the uptight lawyer. His lectures are more captivating narrative than legalese, and the wide-open spaces of the Plateau are a suitably appropriate setting for his teaching.
"Charles Wilkinson's field classes are legendary," said Crouse, who had heard of the professor before arriving at CU to begin her fellowship.
Like Crouse, Hopey was impressed with past fellows' recommendations of his introductory course on natural resources law. After taking that class with her and Stahl during the fall semester, he jumped at the chance to visit the Plateau with Wilkinson.
"He's someone who has a reputation and knowledge of this area that's unparalleled," Hopey said. "Every day on this field tour he gave us these gifts of expertise – from meetings with tribal leaders to out-of-the-way places like Jackass Canyon where tourists never go…His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious."
"He's so completely passionate about this place," said Crouse.
For Stahl, study in the field brought issues alive in a way that doesn't happen in the confines of a classroom.
"There's nothing like cementing textbook reading by seeing what's happening on the ground, " said Stahl. "I can't overstate how much the trip helped me more fully understand the issues we discussed in the seminar."
"It makes everything more real," Crouse agreed, who was able to see places she had assigned stories on yet had never been to, such as Black Mesa and the Navajo Reservation.
Stahl found the camaraderie with the other students equally absorbing. "The classroom atmosphere is sometimes stifling, and it was really nice to get to know people on a more personal level. And that, of course, leads to a freer exchange of ideas."
Given the logistics of the trip, it was inevitable the students would get to know one another well. The group of 17 drove together from Boulder in Wilkinson's SUV, a pick-up truck and several Subarus, staying en route at motels where they sometimes had to share beds, given tight space and a tight budget.
While some of the time they were inside listening to PowerPoint presentations by officials, most of the learning took place outdoors amid the remarkable geological and cultural features of the Plateau.
A moving experience for Crouse was exploring Moon House on Utah's remote Cedar Mesa. The group walked in to the ancient Puebloan ruin with archaeologists and a BLM administrator, and it was "as if we'd discovered it," she said.
"It was a spectacularly beautiful place, even without the ruins," said Crouse, describing the water that had spilled down the face of the slick rock and frozen, leaving icy waterfalls on the stone walls. "It was a really magical, spiritual feeling in there."
The fellows also reveled in hikes up Utah's Dirty Devil River and into Jackass Canyon, which were no small adventures.
The group's guide from the Glen Canyon Institute said, "We're gonna take this little hike – your feet might get a little wet," Crouse said, describing the Dirty Devil trip. They ended up forging their way upstream, pushing against the current, the water above their knees. The reward was an excursion into a maze of swirling slickrock and crenellated canyon walls.
Jackass Canyon was equally dramatic.
Hopey recounted the descent, accompanied by a learned naturalist, into the narrow slot canyon that plummets to the Colorado River on the floor of the Grand Canyon below.
"We had to negotiate these huge rocks that had tumbled down between the canyon walls, which were 150 to 200 feet high."
Stahl reflected that "while the educational parts of the trip were enlightening," it was during such recreational outings that the group really bonded, tossing ideas around in a casual atmosphere while sharing the majesty of the Plateau's natural marvels.
All three fellows concurred that the field tour provided experiences that will transform them as journalists.
Stahl, who is returning to Idaho, comes away with deeper insight into the resource and tribal issues that comprise a fair portion of his beat. There are implications from the Southern Ute water rights issues he studied on the trip, including the massive Animas La Plata dam project, that are significant for his coverage of the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock reservations.
Crouse, too, said she understands "a lot more of the complexities of tribal issues" as a result of her exposure to Wilkinson's classes and the in-person meetings with tribal leaders during the tour.
Especially with regard to water and energy issues, "the tribes are players now," said Hopey. "The energy resources they have on the reservations has given them the power to be players," and that adds a whole new layer in need of understanding, the fellows have come to recognize.
"It's hard to get really good, deep coverage" of the tribes, said Crouse, who appreciates the challenges created by the "cultural divide." "It's a very delicate, difficult little dance," she said, acknowledging she is now more empathetic to reporters who are trying to cover tribal issues.
She also found the field tour helpful context for her fellowship project, a study of the future of ranching in the West. While her focus has been Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington, she said it was illuminating to "go down and look at the places where they are trying to graze cattle" in the Southwest, where water is actually piped in to sustain the herds.
For Hopey, the exposure to mining issues was most relevant. In Pittsburgh, he is far removed from many Western concerns such as grazing permits and arcane water law, but coal mining in particular is a big story in western Pennsylvania.
"My mining stuff is going to be very much impacted" by the fellowship, Hopey said. He is currently working on a coal mining story that takes off from Vernon's campfire oration, discussing the recent shutdown of the Mojave generating plant and resulting closure of Peabody's Black Mesa Mine.
And there were other unexpected connections on the Colorado Plateau with Hopey's life back in Pittsburgh. As the students were entering the Navajo Council Chambers for a presentation, he spotted a guy with two long braids who happened to be wearing a Steelers tie. Instant bond. Hopey discovered that the fellow fan, a Navajo named Frank Seanez, grew up in Pittsburgh and was now an attorney for the Navajo Nation, representing the tribe from its headquarters in Window Rock.
On the Colorado Plateau, modernity is interwoven with timelessness. Science complements myth in a quest to preserve natural resources and ancient ways of life. Policy both protects, and potentially threatens, vulnerable landscapes. These and other lessons the Fellows learned in their sojourn through the pink sandstone and cobalt skies of this vast high desert. While the land may have appeared parched and tormented, beneath their feet streams breathed, and springs bubbled sacred secrets to the surface.
CU scientist says journalists doing better job covering climate change
By Wendy Worrall Redal
In the Spring 2006 issue of SEJournal, published by the Society of Environmental Journalists, Paul Thacker interviews New York Times climate reporter Andrew Revkin to find out how he thinks the media has covered climate change and what advice for future stories he has to offer. In a similar vein, CEJ News/Views posed those questions to University of Colorado climate scientist Jim White. Here's our story:
One of the great credos of journalism is to seek balance in a story, to cover "both sides." But reporters' dogged tendency to do so on the issue of a human role in global warming has had a detrimental impact on the public's understanding of the subject, say many scientists who criticize media coverage of climate change.
They claim that in this case, giving equal weight to the opposition – the few remaining skeptics with questionable credibility – skews the accuracy of the story by ignoring the broad scientific consensus around a human link.
Fortunately, however, news coverage is improving, said Jim White, a geologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies the role of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere, and the causes of abrupt climate change. His research has taken him on many trips to Antarctica and Greenland where he collects ice cores that show climate evolution over time. By melting the samples, scientists are able to analyze the atmospheric gas composition that can cause climate to shift.
White, who directed CU's Environmental Studies Program until 2005, regards the role of journalism as crucial in helping to foster effective national policy about climate change. He has been actively involved on the CU campus in furthering dialogue between scientists and journalists aimed at creating better public understanding of the issue.
In just the last year White said he has noticed a significant shift in media coverage of the subject.
"The reporting is better because I don't see the 'other side' anymore."
Making an analogy with another topic once vehemently contested in the media, White said, "We've reached the 'cigarettes cause cancer' point; we don't call the tobacco companies for quotes anymore."
White also identified a second major shift that is getting media attention.
"There have been real cracks in the walls of the climate naysaying community" as skeptics are being converted by mounting evidence in the past five years, White said. Trying to further a defense against global warming is becoming an increasingly lonely mission, and journalists are recognizing that.
"As a scientist, it's laughable," said White. "How can you defend against reality?"
One reality that has captured journalists' attention is sea-level rise. White said he has seen a notable increase in coverage of the subject in the past six months, especially with regard to Antarctica's melting ice sheets.
"It's finally one of those things the press is covering and people are beginning to recognize it's a big problem."
The last time the Earth was as warm as predictions indicate it will be 50 years from now was 140,000 years ago, said White. At that time, the sea level was three meters higher than it is now, putting Baton Rouge on the coast and making Orlando a port city.
White also said Hurricane Katrina has been a major influence on the press's new focus. While it's impossible to say conclusively that global warming is to blame for Katrina's strength, White said, the storm was nonetheless a huge catalyst for a growing press interest in warming and rising seas and their effects.
"I've come to appreciate the power of these seminal events," White said. "These are galvanizing events that focus people's attention on the problems."
He also recognizes that the public is better able to grasp something concrete than the uncertainty inherent in the science around climate change. Especially with regard to predicting what may lay ahead, White said, "It's very difficult to portray the needed nuances in future climate." Yet it is a crucial task for journalists.
"The word 'global warming' has been a very effective rallying tool," said White, "but warming isn't the biggest concern, not by far." At issue are likely to be "changes in rainfall patterns and whether we can grow enough food," as well as what he calls "the two big ugly issues in the future": sea-level rise and abrupt climate change.
"The public does not recognize the non-linear element in climate change. They can't comprehend the possibility of a 10-15 degree centigrade change in their lifetime." Yet evidence of non-linear climate alteration is starting to appear.
White is seeing it in his own realm of study. "The glacier [research] community is now recognizing that these big ice sheets like Antarctica and Greenland have very non-linear behavior."
"To expect climate to behave in steady, predictable ways is nuts," White said. "That doesn't mean we lack predictability -- preferred states -- but the jet stream can change, and it does…the climate comfort zone is going to be invaded."
How can journalists convey an understanding of that concept to the public? White isn't averse to using elements that people can grasp and relate to, like vanishing sea ice and what that means for polar bear habitat and survival.
"Scientists miss that, " White said. "Many of my colleagues complain that it's all about polar bears -- it is all about polar bears, it's all about seals. You use the ammunition you have."
"The media has an extremely important role over the next two decades in helping to get a clear message to the public. That's beginning to happen."
Ultimately, said White, "We need a partnership between media, scientists and political leaders to deal with sustainability" of the global environment.
"Climate is only one issue that will challenge us. We have to deal with water, pollution, overpopulation, nutrients that will sustain us…" While potential crises "sound far off in the future," according to White, the rate and scale of human environmental impact is "exponential." And people don't get that, which is what worries him.
At the heart of the matter is the ethical concern for future generations, White said, which is lacking.
"We're like a 10-year-old with our foot on the gas pedal, but we can't see over the steering wheel. You just hope you don't hit a tree."
In order "to go into the future with foresight and knowledge, not haphazardly," said White, it's going to take a concerted joint effort, one in which journalists play a key part.
"We need a partnership between those of us who study the problems, between those who take the message to the public, and policymakers who have to make decisions," he said.
White said the press must "keep a long-term role in investigating," to be a "gadfly…to make sure scientists and politicians are not trying to pull the wool over our eyes." At the same time, White challenges his scientist colleagues to understand better "the world of the media, what journalists are up against." He lauds programs like CU's Center for Environmental Journalism, which is dedicated to improving reporting on environmental science and fostering better communication between scientists and the press.
Only with such a focus can society begin to define solutions for a sustainable future, said White. "The time frame between when we realize we have a problem and when we need to find a solution" has been collapsed, he contends, and it's up to journalists to help get that word out.
"The press has an obligation to recognize that we are in a very important transition in the human occupation of the planet," said White. "We can't consider ourselves passive riders on Spaceship Earth. We're not passengers, we're drivers…We need to decide soon where we're going to go."
In the Spring 2006 issue of SEJournal, published by the Society of Environmental Journalists, Paul Thacker interviews New York Times climate reporter Andrew Revkin to find out how he thinks the media has covered climate change and what advice for future stories he has to offer. In a similar vein, CEJ News/Views posed those questions to University of Colorado climate scientist Jim White. Here's our story:
One of the great credos of journalism is to seek balance in a story, to cover "both sides." But reporters' dogged tendency to do so on the issue of a human role in global warming has had a detrimental impact on the public's understanding of the subject, say many scientists who criticize media coverage of climate change.
They claim that in this case, giving equal weight to the opposition – the few remaining skeptics with questionable credibility – skews the accuracy of the story by ignoring the broad scientific consensus around a human link.
Fortunately, however, news coverage is improving, said Jim White, a geologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies the role of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere, and the causes of abrupt climate change. His research has taken him on many trips to Antarctica and Greenland where he collects ice cores that show climate evolution over time. By melting the samples, scientists are able to analyze the atmospheric gas composition that can cause climate to shift.
 |
| CU Professor Jim White in his Boulder office (Photo/ Wendy Worrall Redal) |
White, who directed CU's Environmental Studies Program until 2005, regards the role of journalism as crucial in helping to foster effective national policy about climate change. He has been actively involved on the CU campus in furthering dialogue between scientists and journalists aimed at creating better public understanding of the issue.
In just the last year White said he has noticed a significant shift in media coverage of the subject.
"The reporting is better because I don't see the 'other side' anymore."
Making an analogy with another topic once vehemently contested in the media, White said, "We've reached the 'cigarettes cause cancer' point; we don't call the tobacco companies for quotes anymore."
White also identified a second major shift that is getting media attention.
"There have been real cracks in the walls of the climate naysaying community" as skeptics are being converted by mounting evidence in the past five years, White said. Trying to further a defense against global warming is becoming an increasingly lonely mission, and journalists are recognizing that.
"As a scientist, it's laughable," said White. "How can you defend against reality?"
One reality that has captured journalists' attention is sea-level rise. White said he has seen a notable increase in coverage of the subject in the past six months, especially with regard to Antarctica's melting ice sheets.
"It's finally one of those things the press is covering and people are beginning to recognize it's a big problem."
The last time the Earth was as warm as predictions indicate it will be 50 years from now was 140,000 years ago, said White. At that time, the sea level was three meters higher than it is now, putting Baton Rouge on the coast and making Orlando a port city.
White also said Hurricane Katrina has been a major influence on the press's new focus. While it's impossible to say conclusively that global warming is to blame for Katrina's strength, White said, the storm was nonetheless a huge catalyst for a growing press interest in warming and rising seas and their effects.
"I've come to appreciate the power of these seminal events," White said. "These are galvanizing events that focus people's attention on the problems."
He also recognizes that the public is better able to grasp something concrete than the uncertainty inherent in the science around climate change. Especially with regard to predicting what may lay ahead, White said, "It's very difficult to portray the needed nuances in future climate." Yet it is a crucial task for journalists.
"The word 'global warming' has been a very effective rallying tool," said White, "but warming isn't the biggest concern, not by far." At issue are likely to be "changes in rainfall patterns and whether we can grow enough food," as well as what he calls "the two big ugly issues in the future": sea-level rise and abrupt climate change.
"The public does not recognize the non-linear element in climate change. They can't comprehend the possibility of a 10-15 degree centigrade change in their lifetime." Yet evidence of non-linear climate alteration is starting to appear.
White is seeing it in his own realm of study. "The glacier [research] community is now recognizing that these big ice sheets like Antarctica and Greenland have very non-linear behavior."
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| Warming temperatures are melting Antarctica's ice shelves, spawning massive icebergs (Photo/Josh Landis, National Science Foundation) |
"To expect climate to behave in steady, predictable ways is nuts," White said. "That doesn't mean we lack predictability -- preferred states -- but the jet stream can change, and it does…the climate comfort zone is going to be invaded."
How can journalists convey an understanding of that concept to the public? White isn't averse to using elements that people can grasp and relate to, like vanishing sea ice and what that means for polar bear habitat and survival.
"Scientists miss that, " White said. "Many of my colleagues complain that it's all about polar bears -- it is all about polar bears, it's all about seals. You use the ammunition you have."
"The media has an extremely important role over the next two decades in helping to get a clear message to the public. That's beginning to happen."
Ultimately, said White, "We need a partnership between media, scientists and political leaders to deal with sustainability" of the global environment.
"Climate is only one issue that will challenge us. We have to deal with water, pollution, overpopulation, nutrients that will sustain us…" While potential crises "sound far off in the future," according to White, the rate and scale of human environmental impact is "exponential." And people don't get that, which is what worries him.
At the heart of the matter is the ethical concern for future generations, White said, which is lacking.
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| Threatened polar bears have become a powerful symbol of the consequences of global warming (Photo/Dan Crosbie, Environment Canada) |
"We're like a 10-year-old with our foot on the gas pedal, but we can't see over the steering wheel. You just hope you don't hit a tree."
In order "to go into the future with foresight and knowledge, not haphazardly," said White, it's going to take a concerted joint effort, one in which journalists play a key part.
"We need a partnership between those of us who study the problems, between those who take the message to the public, and policymakers who have to make decisions," he said.
White said the press must "keep a long-term role in investigating," to be a "gadfly…to make sure scientists and politicians are not trying to pull the wool over our eyes." At the same time, White challenges his scientist colleagues to understand better "the world of the media, what journalists are up against." He lauds programs like CU's Center for Environmental Journalism, which is dedicated to improving reporting on environmental science and fostering better communication between scientists and the press.
Only with such a focus can society begin to define solutions for a sustainable future, said White. "The time frame between when we realize we have a problem and when we need to find a solution" has been collapsed, he contends, and it's up to journalists to help get that word out.
"The press has an obligation to recognize that we are in a very important transition in the human occupation of the planet," said White. "We can't consider ourselves passive riders on Spaceship Earth. We're not passengers, we're drivers…We need to decide soon where we're going to go."
Meet the 2006-07 Ted Scripps Fellows
Five journalists have been selected as 2006-07 Ted Scripps Fellows in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The fellowships, now in their tenth year, are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
Meet the new Fellows:
The fellowships, now in their tenth year, are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
Meet the new Fellows:
- Jerd Smith is an environment reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and specializes in water and drought issues. She led a team of journalists who covered the science, money, politics and ecology of water in Colorado from 2002 to 2005. The team won several awards, including the Wirth Chair Media Award for Environmental Coverage. Before working at the Rocky, Smith was the business editor at the Boulder Daily Camera, a business reporter and editor for the Denver Business Journal and a reporter and assistant editor for the Colorado Daily.
- Anne Raup is the assistant photo editor for the Anchorage Daily News. As a photographer and as part of editing teams, Raup has earned several photojournalism awards, including the University of Missouri's Best Use of Photography 2000 award. Raup has also worked as a staff photographer for the Anchorage Daily News and as the photo editor and a staff photographer for the Standard Examiner in Ogden, Utah.
- Anne Keala Kelly is a Hawaii-based freelance journalist and regular radio correspondent for Independent Native News and Free Speech Radio News. She has written for a number of print publications including the Honolulu Weekly and Indian Country Today. Her work focuses on the experiences and perspectives of native Hawaiians. Kelly was awarded the Native American Journalists Association's Best Feature Story 2005 award for her radio program "Native Hawaiians Losing Their Land."
- Leslie Dodson is a freelance television correspondent who has worked as a reporter, correspondent, anchor, on-air editor, producer and writer for a number of broadcast companies including CNBC, Reuters and CNN. She has been stationed all over the world: in Atlanta, Tokyo, London, New York and in six Latin American countries. Dobson's award-winning work has focused on international business and economic news and regularly has drawn connections between business and the environment.
- Bruce Barcott is a contributing editor for Outside magazine and regularly writes environmental and adventure features for the magazine. He is also a freelancer. He has written for publications including Harper's, Sports Illustrated, Legal Affairs and the New York Times. The Society of Environmental Journalists awarded his New York Times Magazine article "Up In Smoke" first place for Explanatory Reporting in 2005. He has worked as a staff writer and senior editor for the Seattle Weekly and as a reporter for the trade magazine Investment Dealer's Digest.
Since 1997, the Scripps Howard Foundation has provided annual grants for its fellowships at CU-Boulder, named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of the E.W. Scripps Co. Ted Scripps distinguished himself as a journalist who cared about First Amendment rights and the environment.
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