(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
This week, I'm the hunt for the source of water pollution
like Michigan.
Light up the night as the holiday train rolls into town
and watches injured raptors take flight
after a visit to the bird whisperer.
We'll also discover a remnant tall grass prairie
in Wisconsin.
- Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided
by the people of a liant energy who brings safe, reliable,
and environmentally friendly energy to keep
homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin
running smoothly.
A liant energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
The University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center,
providing cancer research, education, and treatment.
UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, Comprehensive has designated by
the National Cancer Institute, Information
available on the web.
Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, providing local education
for the crucial occupations essential to our communities.
Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, Communities First.
- We begin this week with an issue we hear a lot about
during the summer, but it's actually a problem year round.
Water pollution in Lake Michigan,
particularly at beaches near Milwaukee.
While many blame the problem on sewage overflows,
that's only one piece of the pollution puzzle.
A puzzle that has scientists, Sandra McLean,
on the hunt for answers and solutions.
Producer Liz Kerner met up with McLean out on the lake.
- The Neske is a no-nonsense working boat.
The work is a aquatic research.
It's a floating lab owned by the Water Institute
at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
- Sandra McLean is an assistant scientist at the Institute.
She's looking for solutions to water-borne disease.
- One of the big studies we have going on right now
is a near-shore sampling where we take almost 40 stations
from the place where the rivers enter Lake Michigan
about two miles out into Lake Michigan.
And we've gone out during worst-case scenario
during the 2004 sewage overflows.
- In May of 2004, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Surridge
District dumped 1.7 billion gallons of sewage
into local rivers in Lake Michigan.
McLean set out to track the sewage down river
and into the lake.
She wanted to find out if it ended up
at Milwaukee's public swimming areas.
- What we found is the indicator organism E.
coli actually dies very
quickly in the lake.
So we can pull a water sample that's within a mile
of the shoreline and find no E.
coli, but we know because
of the hydrodynamics, it still is part
of the river plume and still contain sewage.
- Charging the hydrodynamics showed the sewage overflow
did end up at public swimming areas.
In 2005, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Surridge District
dumped sewage once in late September.
Even though the overflow happened in the fall,
the water was already highly polluted.
According to the Department of Natural Resources,
in 2005, Milwaukee had three of the top 10 most polluted beaches
on Wisconsin's Great Lakes shore.
McLean is trying to find out where the majority
of the pollution is coming from.
- So by doing a lot of very intensive sampling,
what we found is the majority of the E.
coli load actually gets delivered pretty
close to the beach area.
And when you look around, you can find parking lot runoff
washing into beach areas.
And when we take samples off those parking lots,
we can find levels of almost 50,000 or 100,000 E.
coli per 100 mls.
And that's very concentrated.
- McLean isn't sure why E.
coli levels are high in parking lots.
But once she made that discovery,
she began experimenting with a solution,
an artificial wetland that captures and filters runoff
from a parking lot near the beach.
Another source of pollution is rainwater
from rooftops and city streets.
Roof gardens like the one on top of the water institute
reduce this type of runoff.
Wildlife also deposit E.
coli at the beach.
- What we found is, Gulls actually carry one of
the highest E.
coli burdens of most animals.
There's almost 340 million E.
coli cells in one gram of gulf species.
So when you start looking at a beach area with 500
or even a hundred birds roosting on it,
you start to get this really high E.
coli burden in the sand.
And as soon as it rains, all of that filters through the
sand and goes into the water.
- McLean says that E.
coli levels are higher if algae called cladafra
washes up on shore.
- And the cladafra does two things.
It holds the water right near the swimming area
where we take water samples.
And it also can serve as a habitat free coli,
prolonging it's survival or maybe even allowing
it to replicate and grow up in the cladafra.
(water running)
- Another experiment showed that grooming the sand
kills some of the E.
coli before it reaches the water.
McLean is not only looking at how pollution gets to the beach,
she wants to know the original sources.
- So you have to take a step back and say,
what kind of diseases do those sources carry?
Birds, we know can carry some organisms
that can make us sick, like Camp Leu-Bacter or Salmonella.
- Certainly if it's human sources,
we know that has a potential to carry organisms
that can make human sick.
- E.
coli is one indicator of organisms
that can cause illness.
McLean decided to look for an even more sensitive indicator
of pollution.
The indicator is called bacteriaoides.
- There's many other types of bacteria
and bacteriaoides species is one of them
that also travels with E.
coli. It's a useful marker because
it's at a thousand fold, and it's at a higher
concentration than E.
coli. This marker is for
total bacteriaoides, one of our indicators, and
then we're also looking for a second band here
that would be indicative of human contamination.
- In the lab, she uses DNA-based testing
to identify the genetic markers of bacteriaoides.
- One additional advantage of looking for genetic markers
of the DNA directly is you can do the test within four hours.
- Some methods require you to filter water samples
and actually grow up the organisms overnight
to identify them and count them.
- Her research proves that pollution comes from
the area near the beach and from sewage overflows.
There's another potential contributor.
Stormwater contaminated by Milwaukee's old sewer system.
- That is the white elephant in the room.
Most of the engineers know this is not a sewer system
but not 100% integrity because we see high levels in stormwater
where logically in a city that's been built over a hundred
or 80 year time frame, many of those pipes could be leaking.
But it's something that hasn't been looked at real closely.
We're just first getting to the point where we recognize
there's high-bacteria counts.
And now we're asking the question,
well why is there high-bacteria counts?
So over the next three years, we really want to focus on
looking at urban stormwater because if you stop
non-point source runoff, you're still going to have
the problem of leaking sewers.
- Leaking sewers sewage overflows and non-point sources,
a complicated pollution puzzle that requires complicated
and expensive solutions.
- While McClellan's research indicates a number
of possible sources of water pollution near Milwaukee,
sewage overflows clearly add to the problem.
As a result, the state attorney general recently filed
a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District
for sewage overflows that took place in 2004.
The lawsuit seeks a court order for the sewage district
to take steps to eliminate all sanitary sewer overflows.
The lawsuit also seeks penalties for past violations
of the district's water pollution control permit.
(upbeat music)
We turn now to the season of snow.
In the coming month, many of us will celebrate the holidays
by giving gifts to people we love.
Many also give gifts to people we've never met.
Gifts of food to a local food bank.
A rather unusual food bank comes rolling into Wisconsin
next week.
It's the holiday train.
Producer Art Hackett caught up with the train last year
about this time.
- Imagine yourself at a remote rail crossing.
The gate comes down.
A 10 car Canadian Pacific train wrapped in lights goes past.
Then stops.
A country and western singer and a white suede coat
is singing "Syahunt Night."
And you realize you're surrounded by a thousand
or more people standing in the cold rain.
You are not dreaming.
It really happens every December.
- Thank you guys.
Sometimes, you know, we're just the train
that's passing in the night or waking you up
with the horn in the whistle.
And I think the company was looking for a way
to kind of give back to some of the communities
that we run through.
All those cars lined up just north of Brookfield,
they're bringing food for the local pantry.
- Since grain is one of the single biggest commodities
that we should, it seemed really fitting
to do something to help food shells.
- I got another box here for the Paukamp.
- This is a check for $1,500 to the St.
Vincent to Pauk Society's Food Shell.
- The holiday train has been around for six years.
There are two trains actually, one crossing Canada
from St.
Teresa Quebec to Portemooody,
British Columbia.
The US train goes from Scranton, Pennsylvania
to Minot, North Dakota, then North into Saskatchewan.
Tonight, it's heading for Watertown.
? Christmas times come and Christmas times come and ?
? Christmas times come and they're going to the end of ?
- It's too bad box car will he never had a chance
to play the stage since it actually is in a box car.
Montreal Quebec native Patricia Conroy,
former Canadian Country Music Association female
vocalist of the year, is one of this year's entertainers.
- It's become this great, mysterious thing
that you have to see.
- She's living in a village private rail coach
for the trains two week journey.
- I'm a road dog.
I've been on the road for almost 15 years.
For somebody else, this might be rather difficult.
You know, four, five, six shows a day, you know,
day after day.
But for me, it's exhilarating.
I know what to expect, I've done it before.
I know when you pull up to the stop,
people are waiting and they're odd by the look of the train.
They're so glad that you came.
So it's no longer about you, it's about them.
- You do sometimes wonder if they're more there
to see the train than to see you.
- Oh, they're here to see Santa.
They don't care about me.
(laughing)
(upbeat music)
- The stop at Portage looks like something
out of a movie set.
A depot wrapped in white lights and a mile post with
wood narrows pointing in all directions.
- Let's see what to say.
Green Bay is how far?
How about the North Pole?
How far is that, kids?
- Conroy is joined by Bluegrass artist
and two-time Grammy nominee, John Cowan.
? I can see that train of coming ?
? What's that be like on this way ?
? Yeah that way is so soft ?
? We're going Lord it's been on all ?
- What is it that's attracting the people?
- I think it's the idea of A, it's the idea of the train
because if you notice the audience,
it's mostly parents and their kids.
So I think the idea of seeing the holiday train
and the lights on the train, it's such a phenomenon itself.
The music in it is just a bit of an added bonus.
? I'm looking someday ?
? The only thing it's a little difficult
about it is the cold.
?
? It is really hard to play music in these temperatures.
?
? It's something that no one ever experiences
that I know of.
?
? I got a chance to go up with a conductor in the locomotive.
?
? And it's a really special place to be
because you're head on.
?
? You see people waiting on the side of the train ?
? On the side of both sides going from town to town ?
? Taking pictures so as flash as all the time.
?
(train horn)
- When I was a great experience, I thought that we would do
it so much for the well-proc.
The enemies were the food tanks.
(train horn)
- This is the Canadian Pacific Railway holiday train.
In the last few years, we've helped raise more
than a million dollars and 213 tons of food.
You gonna raise a little more right here tonight in Boston?
(cheering)
- Boston is the stop that defies reason.
It's the last stop of the night.
The show doesn't start until after 10 o'clock.
Last year, there were near blizzard conditions,
but there was still a big crowd.
The year before that, Boston earned the
reputation as the town where people really wanted
the holiday train to stop.
We had heard that the train was coming through
and we called the Canadian Pacific Railway
to see how we could get on the list for the following year.
And she said that we could do like an audition.
And if we had 50 people by the tracks in a 48-hour notice,
they would consider stopping.
And we had over 1,000 people that showed up.
And Santa got sucked into the crowd
and we delayed the train a half an hour.
- I did it!
- This year, there were about 1,500 people waiting.
It's a huge opportunity for the area
to raise hunger awareness issues.
Canadian Pacific Railway does a great job in bringing that issue
to the community in a fun, seasonal way,
but still bringing home the fact that they're hungry
that they need to be taken care of.
- Five hours have passed by.
The train has traveled about 130 miles.
Conroy, Cowan, and the band have done four shows.
- Young birds, and the rain, child.
- It's just the sweetness of the event, really.
It's what happens between the audience
and the performers in the whole event.
It really does, there's something a little
bit indescribable, a little bit magical about
what happens out there.
If you notice, whenever we sing Silent Night
and there's no music, can I hear 1,500-2,000 people
singing at Song and News?
- It's very sweet.
? We've never never met ?
- Thank you guys.
- Merry Christmas everybody.
- For all of us to hold a few grandflex and happy holidays.
- Good evening.
(cheering)
- The holiday train will make stops in Wisconsin
between December 9th and the 11th.
This year, the featured artists who will perform
at stops along the route are Wisconsin's
own Willie Porter, the Ennis Sisters,
and Tracy Brown.
For more information, look for a link on our website at
www.org/inwisconsin. We take you now to
Northeastern Wisconsin to meet a woman
with healing hands.
Marge Gibson heals sick and injured wildlife.
She specializes in raptors, eagles and osprey,
and she's known across the country for her healing touch.
Producer Joanne Garrett spent some time with Gibson
and discovered how she helps grounded birds take flight.
- The bird whisperer.
That's what some call her.
Marge Gibson has been healing birds for over 40 years.
(cheering)
Her first patient today, a trumpeter's one,
shot through the neck and in critical condition.
- He's only just come up here, but you can
actually see the hole, but it went right
through his head.
- This antigo native is one of the world's top
wildlife rehabilitators.
She's a past president of the International Wildlife
Rehabilitation Association, and she started
here in Wisconsin.
- You a happy guy?
- When people would find birds, you know,
I was the kid that took care of them,
that strange kid down the road.
So I would get, you know, all these baby birds that, you know,
fell out of nest and things.
And I remember one summer, we did 115 birds,
and this was when I was just a kid when I was about 11 or 12.
- The child who loved birds trained as a
medical technologist.
Took off for California, immersed herself in raptors,
and started a wildlife center.
Her skills were soon so respected, she was called upon
to lead the assessment of eagles caught up in the oil
spill of the Exxon Valdez.
- The trick is to make them comfortable and cooperative
so they don't have to defend themselves or don't
feel like they're having to defend themselves.
- The years have gone by, and Gibson's life is still
wrapped around birds.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
She and husband Don, a medical doctor, had retired
and moved back to antigo.
We were going to refocus our life and not do
as much rehabilitation.
And I was going to be doing some writing which I love to do.
And that was going to be our life.
- But Gibson kept her hand in caring for injured birds.
What happened was it was sort of like a field of dreams.
You know, if you build it, they will come.
And boy, did they come.
It was a huge need to care for sick and injured birds,
to bring them to that wonderful place, release.
And that's how Reggie took wing.
The Raptor Education Group incorporated a nonprofit
started by the Gibson's that now cares for hundreds
of birds in a year, anywhere from 600 to 1000.
Birds with sometimes heartbreaking histories.
- Hey, how you doing mama?
- Patients with histories that often involve humans.
This mother Crain was in an area over sprayed with pesticides.
She refused to leave her chicks.
They died, she barely survived.
- So we tube fed her for about three weeks.
And then when the scabs came on, her eyes came with them.
There is no eye in there at all.
- Patients with histories that can be extremely complex.
- What we're seeing now are the viruses,
which of course are something we haven't
seen at all in the past.
And toxins, which are a real problem.
And it takes much more time to rehabilitate them.
They have many more complex problems.
They have neurologic issues.
- She is still when she reacts to lights and sounds.
She's still hypersensitive to that.
- After decades of work in the field, Gibson has a touch.
She's developed techniques for handling the birds
without sedation, without restraints.
Instead, Gibson relies on a firm grasp of the feet
and a great gentleness.
- One of the things that we do here is different
than a lot of centers is we do talk to them.
And while they don't know our language,
they understand the, I guess, sort of a gentleness,
our gentle voice, and they react positively to that.
- It works.
Most wildlife rehab centers have a recovery
to release rate of 35%.
- Regis is 60%.
- When I hold an eagle, it's, you know, I can be talking
and doing, you know, can other things.
But it's such a natural thing for me that it's not, you know,
it just feels right.
It's one of those odd things that I can't really explain,
but we have a real connection.
I have a real connection to birds.
(crickets chirping)
- It's a bit hurt.
- To do wildlife rehabilitation really well,
you really have to be an expert on the natural history
of that species.
- And Trumpeter Swans, what they tend to do with one another,
is to rub the necks.
They've got their beak sort of on the neck all the time.
Right now, it lowers his stress level.
And his stress level is high.
He's lost a lot of blood here.
- He's lost a lot of blood from the bullet wound.
And his wings were mangled when he was held captive
in the wrong kind of cage.
- You see a piece of tissue here out.
This is a legum tissue.
And his bones are exposed on the wing.
You can see the bone.
To prevent these kinds of injuries,
to properly care for the birds, and to give the public
a better understanding of the problems they face,
Gibson believes that education is critical.
And so those birds that can't be released,
like Mori, a very handsome turkey vulture,
sometimes serve as education birds.
- This is Mori, and Mori is a turkey vulture.
Mori and others make the rounds at schools
and events around the state, like this full capacity crowd
at eagle days in sock prairie.
- You want all of these that we talk about about that?
- But all of this, the education, the rehabilitation,
the care costs.
- It's about 200,000 a year.
And we are a nonprofit in 501(c)(3),
and it's really hard to make enough to support the birds
and we get no help from the federal government or the state.
I mean, not even a bag of food.
- They get by, barely, un-contributions.
On this day, a warden from the Menominee Reservation
drops off a roadkill.
Basically, we put our life into this program here
and we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars,
but it's been our choice.
I've never been to the Bahamas, but this is something
that is compelling.
- Gibson has never been to the Bahamas,
but she's been to thousands of releases.
Birds may spend up to two years in her cave,
releases, or special games.
- Nice to meet all the folks.
May I never be held again.
- Hello.
- Woohoo!
- Since we first reported this story,
the number of birds rescued by Gibson Center has soared.
Last year, the number of bald eagles they cared for
increased threefold over the previous year.
That's our program for this week,
but before we go, an update on a story we brought you
about a year and a half ago.
Scott and Judy Trummel of Luxembourg in Kiwani County
had noticed liquid manure running into the creek
across from their home in early 2004.
A few weeks later, the family's well water was discolored
and contaminated with bacteria.
The Trummel suspected the runoff came from a dairy farm
and nearby owned by Glenn Stahl.
The Trummel filed suit against Stahl Farms,
and Stahl was eventually cited by the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources for violating his
manure discharge permit.
Last week, the Trummel's, the DNR, and Stahl Farms
signed a settlement resolving the matter.
Under the agreement, which still must be approved by a judge,
Stahl agrees to pay damages, forfeitures,
and other costs totaling $380,000.
Some of those forfeitures will be reduced if Stahl
makes improvements to his manure storage system
by next summer.
Our last stop tonight is a visit to Avocapuri in Iowa County.
I'm Patty Lo, see you next time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people
of a Lyon Energy, who bring safe, reliable,
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin running smoothly,
a Lyon Energy, offering energy-saving ideas on the Web.
The University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center,
providing cancer research, education, and treatment.
UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, comprehensive,
has designated by the National Cancer Institute,
Information Available on the Web.
Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, providing the people
of Wisconsin with the knowledge and skills
they'll need for the economy of tomorrow.
Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, communities first.
[MUSIC PLAYING]