Conserving Water in Your Daily Life

By changing your personal routines and installing water-efficient appliances and hardware in your home, you can reduce your water use by up to25 percent.

Sierra Club has helpful suggestions which can decrease your water and utility bills, while protecting the environment.

Bathroom :
Sinks
- Turn off faucets when brushing teeth and shaving. Put an aerator on your faucet (aerators typically cost $2 to $5).
Toilet
- Check for leaks. Remove the lid off of the toilet tank. Add a few drops of food coloring (do not flush toilet). Wait 15 minutes. If color appears without flushing, you have a leak! (Make sure to flush the toilet, so that the food coloring doesn’t stain your toilet bowl.)
- Install a 1.6 gallon low-flow toilet if you have a 5 or 7 gallon per flush toilet.
Shower:
- Take 5-minute showers.
- Install low-flow showerheads.
Kitchen:
- Run dishwasher only when full. Buy a water-efficient and energy-efficient model.

For more information and recommendations, read the Sierra Club’s Activist Toolkit, “A Citizen’s Guide to Protecting the Great Lakes.” Visit http://www.sierraclub.org/greatlakes/downloads/2008-06-activisttoolkit.pdf

Take Action: Install aerators on all of your faucets and test your toilet for leaks. Any other great ideas on how to save water? Leave a comment!

by Carmen E. Abrego

Greening Your Home: Nine Home Health Hazards

Photo: Courtesy of Melissa Damaschke


Sierra Club’s Green Home web site provides excellent information for the homeowner about the “9 Health Hazards.” This web site focuses on helping individuals sustain a healthy home environment.

The nine home health hazards explain how dangerous chemical pollutants and biological contaminants can be in your home.

The list of problems in your home include:

• Radon
• Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
• Problems with Plastics
• Pesticides and Herbicides
• Mold
• Other Biological Contaminants
• Energy-Related Risks
• Banned Building Materials
• Other Energy Concerns

Visit this link to learn about recommendations in reducing pollutants in the home: http://www.sierraclubgreenhome.com/home-health/9-home-health-hazards%E2%80%94and-what-to-do-about-them/

Take Action: When shopping for household products, read labels and use safe products which are biodegradable and not harmful to your health or our water.

by Carmen E. Abrego

Alternatives to Road Salt

Road salt negatively impacts our waterways. When snow melts, the salty water runs off into rivers, lakes and streams. Sand is an alternative to road salt, but it has its disadvantages too. Sand clogs drainage pipes, channels, and streams.

Some homeowners buy de-icing products which may be less corrosive and more environmentally safe. These de-icing products contain magnesium or calcium chloride.
In New York, Ice Ban Magic has been introduced as a substitute for road salt. Ice Ban Magic is a biodegradable liquid. It is used on roads and can be mixed with sand or road salt. Chicago used a beet-juice-and-salt cocktail on the roads in 2008 to reduce damage after snow and melt wash crystals into storm sewers.

For more information, visit http://ei.cornell.edu/toxicology/bioessays/Design2.asp and http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/mar/13/news/chi-beet-juice_13mar13

Take Action: Use de-icing products that are salt-free. Contact your local Public Works Department to request that they use alternatives to salt and sand.

by Carmen E. Abrego

Alternatives to Burning Leaves

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) advises residents to use other alternatives to burning leaves on home property. When leaves are burned fine particles and pollutants like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons enter the atmosphere. These pollutants may cause severe allergies, asthma and heart disease in adults and children.

An alternative to burning leaves is mulching and composting excess yard waste and leaves. The DEQ encourages homeowners to mow over leaves with a lawnmower and chop leaves into a fine mulch. Creating a fine mulch and spreading it over the lawn provides essential nutrients for a healthy lawn.

Local communities offer compositing programs. Residents should contact the Department of Public Works to obtain information on leaf collection and yard waste for composting. Some communities require permits to burn leaves. Homeowners are given instructions and safety tips on burning leaves. Residents are responsible for any damage caused by fire.

For more information visit www.michigan.gov/deq and www.sierraclub.org

Take Action: The Sierra Club’s advice to home owners: Don’t put yard clippings and leaves in the street or in storm drains or streams. Instead, compost or mulch it. Makes sure to cover piles of dirt and mulch when landscaping. This prevents it from entering drains or streams when it rains.

by Carmen E. Abrego

URGENT ACTION ALERT! ASIAN CARP - SIX MILES FROM LAKE MICHIGAN!!

Photo: Courtesy Michigan Sea Grant

Today we learned that the Army Corps of Engineers has detected DNA evidence of Asian Carp ABOVE the electric barriers in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Cal-Sag Channel and the Calumet River. That means the fish could be within 6 miles of Lake Michigan with only navigational locks standing in their way.

Please take a moment to make a handful of important calls today to stop the Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes.

Call your member of Congress AND the Director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and urge them to:
• Tell the Corps to immediately close all controlling locks in Chicago waterways that lead to Lake Michigan.
• Tell the Corps to take any and all monitoring and control efforts to keep the Asian carp at bay and the Great Lakes safe.
• The risk is too great to delay taking action – we must act today to save the Great Lakes from this devastating invasive species.

To reach your member of Congress, you may call the Capitol Switchboard at: 202-224-3121
To reach IL DNR Director Marc Miller, call 217-785-0075

For more information, call Melissa at 313-955-0055 or read the recent article in the Detroit Free Press, Asian carp may have breached barrier for lake.


BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
What are Asian carp?
There are three species of Asian carp that are considered invasive and a threat to the Great Lakes, the bighead, silver and black carp. Silver and bighead carp are filter-feeding fish and consume plant and animal plankton at an alarming rate. Bighead carp can grow to very large sizes of over five feet in length and can weigh 100 pounds or more. Black carp differ in that they consume primarily mollusks, and threaten native mussel and sturgeon populations. They can grow to seven feet in length and 150 pounds.

Where did Asian carp come from?
Asian carp were originally imported to the southern United States in the 1970s to help aquaculture and wastewater treatment facilities keep retention ponds clean. Flooding throughout the 1990’s allowed these fish to escape into the Mississippi and migrate into the Missouri and Illinois rivers.
Why are they a problem in Illinois?
Asian carp are a problem because of their feeding and spawning habits. Bighead carp are capable of consuming 40% of their own body weight in food each day. Silver carp are smaller, but pose a greater danger to recreational users because of their tendency to jump out of the water when disturbed by boat motors. They have severely impacted fishing and recreation on the Illinois River. They can spawn multiple times during each season and quickly out-compete native species by disrupting the food chain everywhere they go. Click the link to see how they have devastated the Illinois River. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS7zkTnQVaM

What happens if Asian carp enter the Great Lakes?
Asian carp could have a devastating effect on the Great Lakes ecosystem and a significant economic impact on the $7 billion fishery. Once in Lake Michigan, this invasive species could access many new tributaries connected to the Great Lakes. These fish aggressively compete with native commercial and sport fish for food. They are well suited to the water temperature, food supply, and lack of predators of the Great Lakes and could quickly become the dominant species. Once in the lake, it would be very difficult to control them.

For more information, visit: http://m.freep.com/news.jsp?key=566069&rc=sp and
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-fish-kill-03-dec03,0,1732537.story

Teaching Parents, Teachers and Children about Water Pollution

There are many resources for parents, teachers, and children.

National Geographic’s web site has information for children on water pollution, www.nationalgeographic.com/kidsnetwork/water/session_03.html.

It teaches children about water pollution and provides interactive activities for children to do to protect water from pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a great web site for children and teachers. Children learn about protecting the planet with games and teachers are provided with lesson plans on how to teach protecting our resources to students.

For more information visit www.epa.gov/kids/water.htm

Take Action: Share these links with your children, grandchildren, and any teachers you know.

- by Carmen Abrego

Coal-fired Power Plants and Water Pollution

Coal-fired power plants not only create air emissions, they also pollute our waterways.

The October 2009 story, “Toxic Waters,” by Charles Duhigg, tells about the yellow smoke-filled skies in Masontown, Pennsylvania coming from the nearby coal-fired plant. The smoke has left a film on the cars and small pebbles of coal waste cover the grounds. The power plant’s owner of Allegheny Energy is currently involved in a lawsuit with five states which include New York and New Jersey. Several illnesses have resulted from the pollution including respiratory diseases, cancer and organ failures.

Water scrubbers have been installed to clean the plant’s air emissions; however the company has dumped this wastewater containing hazardous chemicals into the Monongahela River which provides drinking water to 350,000 people. The major problem is that there are no federal regulations that govern the disposal of power plants into the waterways and landfills. The list of coal-fired power plants nationwide is alarming.

For more information visit http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters/polluters/power-plants

Take Action: It’s time to move America beyond dirty coal. Go to Sierra Club’s Coal Website to find out what action is needed in your community, http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/.