All language subtitles for Poisoned Waters 2009

>> NARRATOR: Puget Sound.

Chesapeake Bay.

They are America's great coastal
estuaries and they are in peril.

>> I would put Puget Sound
in the intensive care unit.

The situation is critical.

>> The Chesapeake Bay is like
the canary in the coal mine.

It is an indicator of what
we are now learning to expect

in any body of water
across the planet.

>> NARRATOR: Three decades
after the Clean Water Act,

"Frontline" takes a hard look
at why America has failed

for so long to clean up
the nation's waterways.

>> Agriculture is by far
the largest source of pollution

to the all of the waters
in the country.

>> We're not talking about

little ma and pa on the farm
anymore.

We're talking about
industrial production.

It is industrial waste.

>> NARRATOR: And how
contaminated waters threaten

not only wildlife...

>> You have frogs with six legs,
male frogs with ovaries.

>> NARRATOR: ...but ultimately
threaten our own health as well.

>> The same things that
are killing the animals

will kill people, too.

>> NARRATOR:
In a two-hour special report,

"Frontline" correspondent
Hedrick Smith

uncovers the danger
to the nation's waterways,

tracking new threats...

>> If you are living
in Washington, DC,

would you drink water coming out
of the Potomac?

>> Probably not.

>> NARRATOR:
...confronting new challenges...

>> This is sick.

>> This is sick.
It's like a cancer.

It's growing.

>> NARRATOR: ...and discovering
the ultimate problem...

>> It's about the way
we all live,

and unfortunately,
we are all polluters.

I am, you are,
and all of us are.

>> NARRATOR: Tonight,
"Frontline" investigates

what's poisoning America's
waters.

>> HEDRICK SMITH:
Chesapeake Bay at dawn.

One of those magical moments
when you feel at peace

and in harmony with nature.

For me, the Chesapeake
is a special place,

an extraordinary
natural treasure.

Over the past 30 years,
I've spent a lot of time

on the Bay-- sailing, hiking,
swimming, crabbing.

I love the water-- its calm,
its beauty, its majesty--

and I'm fascinated by
its meandering shorelines.

In the early morning light
the Bay can look so pure

and pristine,
but that's deceiving.

I know that like most
of America's waterways,

Chesapeake Bay is in trouble

despite years of trying to save
it, and that worries me.

I wanted a firsthand look,

and so I headed out on the water
with Larry Simns,

a waterman who's been
commercially fishing the Bay

for 60 years.

>> In its peak time,
if you drained the Bay,

the crabs and the fish
and oysters and everything

would probably be ten foot deep

on the bottom all over
the whole Bay.

>> SMITH:
Over the past several decades,

Simns has watched the good times
of bountiful harvests slip away.

About like your
home waters here.

>> Yeah.
Yeah.

>> SMITH: What is the
Chesapeake Bay like today

for a watermen?

>> The only thing that
we have in abundance

that we had back then was
the striped bass, the rockfish.

Other than that,
everything else is diminished.

The oysters, we used to catch
two million bushel a year.

Now, we catch 100,000 bushel.

I never, ever dreamed

that I wouldn't be catching
shad anymore,

I wouldn't be catching
yellow perch anymore,

I wouldn't be catching
tarpon anymore.

I never, ever dreamed that
that would come to an end.

>> SMITH: Simns took me to the
old fishing town of Rock Hall,

where watermen were bringing
in the day's crab catch.

Crabs have long been the
trademark of Chesapeake Bay,

but the catch now is down more
than 50% from 25 years ago.

So how was the catch today?

>> Well, it dropped off
a little bit today.

>> SMITH: Dropped off.

So what are you coming in with
a six, seven, eight bushels?

>> Nine altogether.

>> SMITH: Nine bushels?

Ten years ago,
how many would you have caught

on an average day?

>> Be about 30.

>> SMITH: About 30 bushels,
about three times as many.

>> Yeah.

>> SMITH:
How do you feel about the bay

and what's happened to it?

>> I think it's a tragedy.

I think... a little upset
that my children can't enjoy

this way of life that I cherish,
you know?

>> In Rock Hall harbor, all that
used to be processing houses

for striped bass, for oysters,
for clams,

for everything
we was harvesting.

>> SMITH: So a lot of people
in the fish and crab

and oyster business
went out of business?

>> Yeah.

>> You're talking about billions
of dollars of economic impact

with oysters, crabs,
shad, striped bass.

The decline in the fisheries
has just been dramatic.

I wouldn't have thought even
ten or 15 years ago

that we would literally lose
oysters as a commercial fishery.

We have.

It's... it's done.

>> SMITH: Watermen are seeing
the symptoms of decline,

but the deeper problem,
I learned,

is that the very dynamics
of the Bay's ecosystem

are being fundamentally altered
by human impact.

The Bay is acutely vulnerable

because its watershed
is so large--

11,000 miles of shoreline,
and it drains big rivers

from six states.

>> In all of North America,
it's the largest estuary.

We're talking a sixth
of the East Coast

from Cooperstown, New York,
out into West Virginia,

almost down to North Carolina.

>> SMITH: It is the receptacle
of an enormous volume of water

in a uniquely shallow basin.

Its average depth
is only 21 feet,

making the Bay
an ecological hothouse.

>> It's fabulously productive,
but also exquisitely vulnerable

to land use because it has
a huge drainage basin.

So you have, you know,
the classic place

for trying to determine whether
humans and nature can coexist.

>> SMITH: One problem
for Chesapeake Bay

is that humans have drastically
over-fished the resources,

especially crabs.

But scientists have also tied
the dramatic decline

in fisheries here
to man-made pollution

and a growing phenomenon
called dead zones.

>> Dead zones happen
when too much fertilizer--

nitrogen, phosphorous--
comes in.

It grows lots of excess algae.

The algae die, decompose,
suck up the oxygen

from the deeper waters, which
aquatic life needs to live.

>> SMITH: This is what a healthy
oxygen-rich bay bottom

looks like--
full of lush grasses

where fish and crabs can grow.

A dead zone is completely
different-- barren and empty.

>> The bottom of the bay,
when there is an algae bloom

or when you have a dead zone, is
as dead as the face of the moon.

There is absolutely no oxygen
in these dead zones,

and nothing can live that
requires oxygen for survival.

>> SMITH: Crabs can't make it?

>> Crabs can't make it.

Oysters can't make it.

Fish that get caught in a
dead zone will literally die

if they can't get out
of the dead zone.

They'll float up to the surface,
their bellies will explode,

and you'll see fish kills
throughout the Chesapeake Bay.

>> SMITH: In the heat of summer,
dead zones now occupy

as much as 40% of the main stem
of the Chesapeake Bay.

But it's not just a Bay-wide
problem; it's worldwide.

All across the planet, dead
zones have been doubling

in frequency and size
every decade.

There's one
in the Gulf of Mexico

the size of the state
of Massachusetts.

Pollution is not just creating
dead zones.

It's playing havoc with
human health and recreation.

>> And those health advisories
at Sandy Point beach

are still in effect,
and will be...

>> SMITH: Every year,
more beaches have to close

periodically
because of pollution.

>> People are urged to avoid
direct contact with the water...

>> The unfortunate reality
is that people get sick

from contact with water
every single day,

and we have information
suggesting

that that problem
is getting worse today

than it was ten years ago.

And this is a result of a number
of different contaminants

being in the water that
ultimately can make people sick.

>> Today we're at a point
at which this system

called the Chesapeake Bay
may be on the verge

of ceasing to function in
its most basic capacities.

And what do I mean by that?

Providing a place for people
to swim, recreation.

Providing a source of seafood--
shellfish, finfish, oysters,

crabs, underwater grasses which
support the crab population.

And being a system that is
absolutely wonderful to look at,

to support tourism,
to be a source of real pride

to the region.

We are at the verge
where all of those functions

of the Chesapeake Bay that
we value could be lost

to the next generation,

unless we take dramatic and
fundamental action today.

>> SMITH: What leaves the Bay's
defenders distraught

is not only its perilous
condition,

but the public's evident
loss of interest

and the failure of federal
and state governments

to stick to their repeated
promises over the past 25 years

to clean up the Bay.

>> There has been so much
investment in science

and in modeling
and in monitoring.

We know today precisely
what is necessary

to save the Chesapeake,
and now it's very clear

it comes down to the question
of political will.

>> You know there's a tendency
to blame it

on lack of political will.

Well, hell, who elects
the politicians

and who re-elects them?

Last time I looked, it was us.

We ran out of excuses for
delaying many, many years ago

around the Chesapeake.

We can afford it.

We don't necessarily want to pay
for it, but we can afford it.

So I have to say
that collectively

we don't care enough.

>> SMITH: There was a time
when we, as a nation,

did care enough
to demand action:

four decades ago
when the country was rocked

by a series of environmental
disasters.

>> Well, I remember what it was
like before Earth Day.

I remember when the Cuyahoga
River burned with flames

that were eight stories high.

I remember when... the Santa
Barbara oil spill in 1969,

that closed virtually all the
beaches in Southern California.

I remember when they declared
Lake Erie dead.

I remember that I couldn't swim
in the Hudson

or the Charles or the Potomac
when I was growing up.

>> SMITH:
We could see the pollution,

smell it, even touch it.

The problem was in our faces
and the public demand for action

exploded on Earth Day.

(angry chanting)

>> In 1970,
this accumulation of insults

drove 20 million Americans
out onto the street,

10% of our population,

the largest public demonstration
in American history.

>> There was anger
at the state of the world,

at the state of your
own backyard,

whether it be a water body or
the air or your mountain range,

whatever it was you related to
as the environment.

There was anger that we
as a country had let it go.

And there was a very much
of a grassroots rebellion

saying this has got to stop.

>> It was a big issue.

It exploded on the country.

It forced the... a Republican
administration and a president,

which had never really...

he had never thought about this
very much, President Nixon.

It forced him to deal with it
because public...

the public said,
"This is intolerable.

We've got to do something
about it."

>> SMITH: Responding to
congressional pressure,

Nixon created the Environmental
Protection Agency.

He picked Bill Ruckelshaus,
a Justice Department lawyer

with a solid Republican
pedigree,

as its first administrator.

And Ruckleshaus
quickly took charge.

>> We had to select
some big visible polluters,

both industrial and municipal,
go after them,

make sure the public understood
we were being responsive

to their concerns,

and that would energize the
agency and get us in a position

to do things that needed
to be done

in order to address the problem.

>> SMITH: Congress armed
Ruckelshaus and the EPA

with a raft of new environmental
laws, like the Clean Water Act,

that imposed strict
pollution limits

and penalties for violators.

The act called for America's
waterways to be fishable

and swimmable again by 1983.

It had strong bipartisan
support in Congress,

but not, it turns out,
from President Nixon.

>> When we finally passed
the Clean Water Act

in the Senate and the House,
Nixon vetoed it.

And for the first time in
the Nixon administration,

he had a veto overridden,
substantially and significantly.

>> SMITH:
And what does that say?

Nixon was out of step
with the country?

Nixon didn't care
about the problem?

>> It was my impression--

and I'm a Democrat so I've got
to be forgiven for that--

but it was my impression
that Nixon's interest

in the environment was
strictly political.

>> He didn't know much about
the environment, and frankly,

he wasn't very curious about it.

He never asked me the whole time
I was at EPA,

"Is the air really dirty?

"Is something wrong
with the water?

What are we worried about here?"

He would warn me.

He said, "You got to be worried
about that Ehpa,"

he called it Ehpa.

He was the one person in
the country that called it Ehpa.

>> SMITH: EPA.

>> EPA. He'd call it Ehpa.

And he said those people
over there,

now don't get captured
by that bureaucracy.

>> SMITH: But with bipartisan
backing in congress,

Ruckelshaus took
strong action anyway.

He banned DDT,
imposed a tight deadline

for reducing auto emissions,

sued several cities and big
steel and chemical companies

for polluting the air and water.

His tough approach made enemies.

>> Most of the people running
big American manufacturing

facilities in those days
believed this was all a fad.

It was going to go away and...

and all they had to do was
sort of hunker down

until the public opinion
subsided,

public concern subsided,
and it would go away.

>> SMITH: When you went after
the big polluters,

you sued them,
you took them to court.

What was the reaction
of U.S. Steel?

>> Oh, boy, they didn't like it.

I remember going up to see
Ed Cott,

who was the CEO of U.S. Steel.

He told me, he said,

"You know we don't like
you very much," and he said,

"We don't... we certainly don't
like your agency."

And I said,
"Well, if that's your attitude,

then we're probably going
to get in a fight over it."

>> SMITH:
So you had to enforce the law.

You had to be a tough regulator.

>> That's right.

You had to reassure the public

that this was a problem the
government was taking seriously.

We had to be tough.

We had to issue standards
and we had to enforce them.

>> SMITH: One of the first big
regulatory success stories

came right here
on the Potomac River.

>> The Potomac River goes up
to the mountains of Appalachia.

It comes past
our nation's capital,

and then it enters the estuary
of the Chesapeake Bay.

And what we saw in the
Potomac River in the l960s

was what was seen in many rivers
around the country,

where it smelled so bad

you didn't want to get anywhere
near it,

and that odor was in large
part created

by poorly treated sewage.

>> If you were out sailing in
a small boat and capsized,

you had to go in and get a shot
or two.

I mean, it was literally
hazardous to your health

to come in contact
with the water.

>> SMITH:
Restoring the Potomac

meant modernizing the sewage
treatment plants

along the river, like this
one called Blue Plains,

just south of Washington.

Blue Plains handles the waste
of two million people,

and it embodies just
the kind of pollution

targeted by the
Clean Water Act--

pollution coming out of a pipe.

And in the 1970s, Blue Plains
was the biggest single source

of pollution to the Potomac.

>> Blue Plains was the key
wastewater treatment plant

that had to be modified if we
were really going to make a...

a good effort at restoring the
water quality in both the river

and in the Bay.

>> SMITH:
The Potomac had become overrun

with acres of green algae
caused by excess nutrients

from human waste, like
phosphorous and nitrogen.

>> The regulators said, "Okay,
phosphorus is the problem

in the Potomac,

therefore, you people running
the wastewater treatment plants

will upgrade to remove
phosphorus,"

and it happened in a very short
period of time.

>> SMITH: But the river didn't
improve all that much.

It turned out that they needed
to remove nitrogen, too,

a costly process.

But Cliff Randall
found an answer:

a new, more economical
technology

called biological nutrient
removal, or BNR.

>> The way we treat sewage
is we take in the sewage

and we feed it to a large mass
of bacteria

and other microorganisms.

And basically they eat
the sewage.

>> SMITH: They eat the sewage?

>> That's correct.

>> SMITH: Munch, munch, munch.

>> That's right.

>> SMITH:
It took a billion dollars

in federal and state funds
to modernize Blue Plains

with several new technologies,
including BNR,

but the effort paid off,

and more than 100 sewage
treatment plants

around the Bay adopted
BNR technology.

How much of these early gains
were not only the result

of technology, but of a
pretty tough regulatory stick

from the EPA and
the state governments?

>> You know, that was
a tried and true formula.

I mean, with sewage treatment--

where we made the biggest gains
early on,

and continue to make
the biggest gains--

you have very clear laws.

You have penalties,
you have deadlines,

you have enforcement,
you have inspection.

I mean, we know what works.

>> SMITH: But the 1980s
brought a new era,

and the political climate
on the environment changed.

The winds of deregulation were
blowing through Washington,

especially during
the Reagan years.

>> It is time to check
and reverse the growth

of government, which shows signs
of having grown

beyond the consent
of the governed.

It is my intention
to curb the size

and influence of
the federal establishment.

>> There's no question that the
Reagan administration, in fact,

brought to Washington
a deregulatory agenda.

I remember back in the Reagan
days of seeing memos

that would come out
from the White House

to the Chamber of Commerce
and other big businesses

asking them for
a list of regulations

from which they
would want relief.

>> SMITH: Environmental
regulation was a prime target

of the Reagan White House
for giving relief

to American business.

>> The Reagan administration
essentially gutted the EPA.

They stopped it in its tracks

for a period of six,
seven years.

Reagan and his White House
appointed people

to run the Environmental
Protection Agency

who were flat out opposed
to the mission of the agency

and were set to undo
that mission.

>> SMITH:
The Reagan administration

not only handcuffed EPA
on enforcement,

it shifted to a new strategy
of voluntary compliance,

a strategy typified by
the Reagan EPA's new program

for Chesapeake Bay.

>> What we created
in the Chesapeake Bay

was a grand experiment.

It was going to be
an alternative

to the regulatory approach
that had swept the EPA,

that had swept
the federal system.

They were going to try to do
this in a non-regulatory,

cooperative manner.

>> SMITH: The new approach was
long on promises and targets,

but short on hard deadlines
and clear accountability.

>> It is a voluntary program.

You are never going
to effectively deal

with a multi-state
pollution problem

with a voluntary program.

>> SMITH: The result was
the Chesapeake Bay program

repeatedly missed its targets,

leaving unfulfilled the
Clean Water Act's promise

to radically reduce
water pollution.

I saw the consequences

of how deregulation
has played out

here on the Chesapeake Bay's
eastern shore,

where huge factory-scale farms
now dominate the landscape,

and where half the pollution
flowing into the Bay--

much of it from agriculture--
remains essentially unregulated.

I had come here to meet
Rick Dove,

a professional photographer
and environmental consultant

who, under the authority
of the Clean Water Act,

has been gathering information
for a potential citizens lawsuit

against agricultural polluters.

Dove took me up on a small plane
and gave me a bird's eye view

of his detective work
on the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

You can actually get a really
clear picture up here.

It's almost like a diagram up
here looking at it.

>> That's one of the interesting
things about flying,

and that is that there are
no "no trespassing" signs.

You can look straight down

and you can see everything
you need to see,

you can document it.

>> SMITH: Dove is
investigating the pollution

from big chicken farms.

As we fly, he points out
rows of long flat sheds--

each a couple of hundred
yards long,

each holding up
to 40,000 chickens.

>> No matter where you fly
on the eastern shore,

it's loaded
with these chicken farms.

>> SMITH: The problem is where
there are chickens,

there's manure.

>> It's everywhere.

We know there's bad stuff
in poultry waste.

Once it gets in those ditches
and once those ditches

begin to flow down to all these
rivers on the eastern shore,

it's on its way to the Bay.

These rivers are
delivery systems.

Whatever nutrients are flowing
in that river

are being delivered to the Bay.

>> SMITH: Chicken manure
is loaded with nutrients

like nitrogen and phosphorous.

Remember the dead zones
in the Bay?

They were caused by algae,

which is fed by nitrogen
and phosphorous.

>> We'll shoot 400, 500, 600
pictures in an afternoon,

and we're going to blow them up

and we're going to take a look
at all the details

because that's how you really
are able to identify

exactly how that poultry waste

is leaving that farm
and getting to the Bay.

Today some of the pictures
I took,

we're going to go to the site

and we're going to see
that on the ground.

>> SMITH: The aerial photos lead
Dove to a chicken farm

he's been watching for more
than a year.

That's Lessig up there?

>> Yes it is, that's
Lessig's Farm right there.

There's four barns on the
right are the original barns,

and in the last year he's added
these two on the end over here.

>> SMITH:
That's a pretty big place.

We're talking 240,000, 250,000
chickens there

at any one time.

Dove can check on farm runoff
from public roadways.

And the photos give him a clear
map of how polluted rainwater

moves from the farm to the Bay.

>> This is the Lessig Farm.

This is animal waste,
poultry litter.

>> SMITH: Big piles of it.

>> It is a big pile.

But what's really alarming
about this

is you can see what's happened
when it's rained.

All of this water
has collected around it

and it has formed some leachate.

And you can see
how this leachate

is running down alongside
in between these barns.

>> SMITH:
With all the stuff in it.

>> With whatever it's collected
from that poultry waste.

It comes out of these pipes
here, comes in there,

comes over to here
and then it goes under the road

and right on down
to the Minocan River,

and right on out to the Bay.

>> SMITH: Wow. And have you
tested this water right here?

>> This is where we've tested.

Here, there...

>> SMITH: And what kind
of readings did you get?

>> Extremely high.

The E. coli standard
is 126 colonies.

Theirs was 48,392.

And nitrogen and phosphorous
all elevated,

clearly indicating that animal
waste is involved here.

And even arsenic at nine times

what the normal background
level would be.

So it was a lot happening here.

>> SMITH: Farm owner Aaron
Lessig did not respond

to "Frontline's" repeated
efforts to ask him

about the water tests,

which Dove's team turned over
to the EPA.

Look who he's growing for.

Lessig is growing
these chickens for Perdue.

>> The sign advertised
says it's Perdue, Lessig Farm.

>> Every Perdue chicken
has one of these tags on it.

It means you're getting a fresh,
tender, tasty young chicken.

I make sure of that because
every one of these tags

has my name on it.

>> SMITH:
Over five decades,

Perdue farms grew
from a family business

to the dominant
poultry processor

on the Chesapeake's
eastern shore.

And as Perdue grew,

it transformed
the chicken industry.

>> There used to be 200
companies on the shore

involved in the poultry
industry,

but they were all independent.

So you had an independent
hatchery,

an independent processing plant.

The story of
the poultry industry

and of Perdue is
vertical integration.

>> SMITH: Integration meant
a few big chicken companies

controlling all aspects
of production.

Perdue mushroomed into

a multibillion-dollar
conglomerate.

Small family chicken farms
became chicken factories.

>> Well, I think capitalism in
general stimulates efficiency,

and efficiency often is size.

And so, you know, I think
things had to become bigger

in order to keep costs lower
so you could maintain,

you know, your price structure.

>> SMITH:
Factory-style poultry production

drove down chicken prices,
and Americans responded.

Over the past 50 years,

per capita consumption
of chicken has tripled.

But there's been another price
to all those cheap chickens.

>> Poultry farming,
like most animal farming,

has become much more intense,
much more concentrated.

Where you had 50,000 chickens
on a given plot of ground,

you've got a half million
or two million now,

which produces a huge problem
of what to do with the manure.

>> SMITH: In 2008, Delmarva
Peninsula Poultry Farms

raised more than 570 million
chickens,

and all those chickens produced
massive mountains of manure--

1.5 billion pounds a year.

That's more manure
than the annual human waste

from four big cities--

New York, Washington,
San Francisco and Atlanta--

all put together.

Before mass production
chicken farms,

local crop farmers used to
absorb the chicken manure.

Now there's way too much
for them to absorb.

>> Agriculture is by far
the largest source of pollution

to the Chesapeake Bay and it is
arguably the single biggest

source of pollution to all
of the waters in the country.

>> SMITH: So the problem
isn't just manure,

but it's too much manure.

>> It's too much manure and,
arguably, too many animals

under the current structure.

Now there's all...

>> SMITH: You mean too many
animals in one place?

>> Exactly.

>> SMITH: It's a problem
all over the country.

Hog farms in the Carolinas
and Iowa,

poultry farms in
Arkansas and Texas,

cattle farms in Wisconsin and
along the Susquehanna River

in Pennsylvania.

>> In terms of just damage
to the ecosystems, you know,

the destruction
of entire ecosystems--

of aquatic communities,
of fish going extinct--

there's nothing as bad as the...

as these factory farm
operations.

Nothing.

>> SMITH:
So to save the bay,

the EPA says it's essential
to get control

over the animal manure.

What's made that hard
is deciding

just who's responsible
for all that manure.

To understand how the chicken
business is organized

and how it's run, I checked
in with Carole Morison,

a successful Perdue grower
for many years.

>> Typically, the farmer has
a contract with the company--

whether it be Perdue,
Tyson's, whoever--

and you contract to raise
their chickens.

They own the chickens.

They just drop 'em off
on the farm for us to raise

to a marketable age,

and then they come
and pick up the chickens,

take them for processing.

>> SMITH:
When Perdue required

that Morison modernize
her chicken houses

at a cost of $150,000 or more,

she decided to get out
of the business.

This is her last batch
of Perdue chickens.

Now what's
the relationship here?

Do you bargain with one company
or another as a grower?

>> There's no bargaining
in the contracts.

Contracts are designed
by the company,

brought out to the farm, and you
either sign it and get chickens,

or sign... not sign it
and not get chickens

and ultimately lose the farm.

>> SMITH: So you're saying
that the processors

dictate the terms?

They run the show?

>> Yes, the processors dictate
all of the terms...

>> SMITH:
The terms are very specific.

The big chicken companies own
the chickens, supply the feed,

dictate the growing regimen,
do all the processing.

They own it all--
except the chicken waste.

>> Well, anybody else who owns
an animal is responsible

for their waste.

If the company owns the animal,

why are they not responsible
for their waste?

I've never understood that.

I have horses.

I have a dog that's outside.

I'm responsible for their mess.

Now the chickens are owned
by these companies,

like Perdue and Tyson.

How is it they're not
responsible for it?

>> SMITH:
Help me understand one thing.

How do you wind up by owning
the chickens, owning the feed

and not owning, in the sense
of legal responsibility,

the manure?

>> The manure is considered
a resource, actually.

The producers want the litter.

They want the chicken litter.

It's not a matter of who owns
or doesn't own it.

It's a matter of what use
is it being made from it.

>> SMITH:
As factory farming has grown,

the volume of excess manure
has mushroomed,

and there's been an increasing
push to regulate farm pollution.

But American agriculture has
fought off pollution controls

for three decades.

>> The whole agricultural
community has remained

maybe the last big
or the biggest unregulated...

largely unregulated area
of water pollution.

And it's why EPA tells you
across the country

agriculture's responsible for
60%, or something like that,

of our water quality problems.

>> We are talking the equivalent
of medium-size cities in terms

of the waste that is generated,
that is virtually untreated,

going into the Chesapeake Bay
and...

>> SMITH: So cities
have their waste treated,

go through water treatment
plants.

Farming, agriculture,

these concentrated
animal-raising operations,

they're not treated
the same way?

>> That is absolutely correct.

>> SMITH:
The Delmarva poultry industry

on the Bay's eastern shore
doesn't see it that way.

It contends that there's
a fundamental difference

between industrial pollution
or urban sewage,

and agricultural waste.

Industry spokesman
Bill Satterfield.

Shouldn't the poultry farms
be subject to the same kind

of limitations that sewage
treatment plants

or industrial plants?

>> A small industrial site
that has to have a permit

knows the source of what
goes into that pipe.

With non-point source pollution,

there are various ways
that nutrients can get

into the ground water and
maybe flow through that pipe.

Farm fields are...

>> SMITH: I'm not talking
about fields.

I'm talking about growers
and sheds where...

I mean, I've literally stood
in front of farms

and I've literally looked
at chicken houses.

I've seen pipes coming
into the drainage ditches

coming from ditches
between the chicken houses.

The source visibly
is quite clear.

>> To know where those
nutrients came in

would require an investigation.

And if the pipe passed under
a chicken house

and started over here
in a field,

who's to say what entered
that pipe on that end?

Who's to say whether the
nutrients, if there are any,

came from chickens or fox or
deer or birds or something else?

>> SMITH: Russell Long,
famous senator from Louisiana,

used to say when people gave
an answer like that,

"It's not you, it's not me,
it's that guy behind the tree."

It seems to me as though every
time we get to this,

even though the evidence
is pointing to

the most...
highest concentrations

right near agriculture
poultry operations,

you're saying, "Well, it could
be the foxes or the geese."

>> If there were proof positive
that those nutrients

are from chickens, then we can
accelerate our programs

and do a better job.

But we can't solve all
the river's problems

with all the people,
all the growth,

all the other animals
on the back of the chicken

and the poultry farmers.

>> I'll be the first one to say
I did it.

I've said this before:
we're all part of it.

And, yes, I think agriculture
is a big contributor

to the pollution, to the run...

the runoff into
the Chesapeake Bay.

The industry knows it.

But what I am tired of is
everyone wasting all their time

and energy in saying,
"I didn't do it."

I did it.

Why can't they admit it?

I mean, you know, let's all say,
"Okay, we're a part of it.

Now let's find an answer."

>> All in favor of adopting a
conference committee report

signify by saying, "Aye."

>> Aye.

>> Opposed, no.

>> SMITH: But finding an answer
has been politically impossible.

>> ...178 is on third reading.

>> SMITH: In the late 1990s,

a bill went before
the Maryland legislature

to require mandatory nutrient
management by farmers

to curb runoff
from chicken manure.

Big chicken didn't like
that idea at all.

>> I think the survival of the
poultry industry is at stake

on the eastern shore.

>> SMITH:
The poultry industry,

among the most financially
powerful lobbies in Maryland,

pushed for a looser alternative.

>> The alternative was to have
voluntary goals.

It was going to be cooperative,

it was going to have
no regulatory teeth,

and it was going to be overseen

by the Maryland
Department of Agriculture,

a non-regulatory agency,

rather than the Maryland
Department of Environment.

>> The farming industry
cannot live

with mandatory nutrient
regulations.

We got to keep it voluntary.

(applause)

>> SMITH:
And the industry bill won.

And since then, the industry
has been successful

in blocking or tying up
subsequent efforts

to regulate their waste.

You sat in the Maryland
legislature for 12 years.

During that period, did you see
the big chicken companies

steadily resist regulation
on manure runoff?

>> Absolutely.

Big chicken companies
were a presence.

Jim Perdue, the son
of Frank Perdue,

was a constant presence,

whether he was sitting
in my chairman's office

or holding a reception
in the evening or whatever.

The chicken lobby
was well represented.

They hired the top guns
in the lobbying community

in Annapolis, and they made
every effort to prevent us

from enacting tough regulations
on agriculture.

>> SMITH: Some people have
said to us that you'd clean up

the whole situation much faster
if the integrators,

the poultry processors,
were responsible.

You got to clean it up,
and you all are responsible.

>> Well, we can only do
what we can do.

The farmer certainly is...

you know, is his own businessman
out there on the farm,

and I think it works better
if it's a cooperative effort.

>> SMITH: So Perdue pioneered
a process to recycle

part of the chicken growers'
excess manure

to ship it across the country.

And Perdue launched
a voluntary program

to teach its growers better
manure management.

And the programs that we're
looking at are an alternative

to more regulation, I guess.

>> More regulation and
enforcement, which nobody likes.

I mean, nobody likes, you know,
somebody coming onto your farm,

you know, without any warning
and those kinds of things.

>> There's no question
that the influence

of the agricultural farm lobby
in general

has had a very successful role
in limiting

the amount of pollution
control regulations

that we see in the Chesapeake
Bay watershed or nationwide.

>> You know, corporations
are externalizing machines.

They're constantly devising ways
to get somebody else

to pay their costs
of production.

And, you know, if you're
in a polluting industry,

the most obvious way to do that
is to shift your cleanup costs

to the public.

Make yourself a billionaire
by poisoning the rest of us.

>> SMITH: Are you saying
the market's distorted?

>> You show me a polluter,
I'll show you a subsidy.

>> SMITH: Chicken farmers
bristled when the Obama EPA

started demanding pollution
discharge permits this spring.

The industry claims
it's already doing enough.

>> The poultry industry is doing
more every year.

We're seeing more best
management practices on farms.

Our program to put trees
on poultry farms

to uptake the nutrients
is a very progressive thing.

There are more and more
programs offered

to help farmers put in manure
storage buildings,

and as the science
says we can do more

without putting our people
out of business,

I'm sure we will do more.

>> SMITH: But environmentalists
like Rick Dove remain skeptical.

>> Now this industry says
they're doing better,

and you know, I can't say
if that's true or false.

But I can tell you
that what I'm seeing

here on the ground right now
is absolutely terrible.

So if it was worse before,

then I can understand why
the Bay is in such bad trouble.

>> SMITH: While the Bay is
besieged by runoff

from the big chicken and cattle
farms along its rivers,

I learned about a whole new kind
of pollution

as I traveled up the Potomac

as it winds its way
past Washington

and up towards the hill country
of West Virginia.

Up here, near the headwaters
of the Potomac,

I heard about the big new
pollution threat

not even known when the Clean
Water Act was passed.

Six years ago, marine biologists
became alarmed at reports

of massive fish kills
on the rivers in this region.

Every year, small mouth bass
were being decimated

by some mysterious problem.

Spring and fall, hundreds of
fish would be found floating

in the water belly up.

I caught up with Vicki Blazer,

a fish pathologist with the U.S.
Geological survey,

who was trying to figure out why
the fish were dying.

What have you got here?

>> So here we have this large
discolored area in the liver,

and then you see all these
little white spots.

Here's another totally
discolored area.

>> SMITH: And that's a signal
of some bigger problem?

>> Yes, when we see a really
high prevalence in a population,

that indicates there's some
problem going on in that water.

>> SMITH: And when Blazer dug
deeper, she found a surprise.

>> One of the major and most
interesting findings

was intersex in the male bass.

When we look at the male gonads,
or testes,

what we find is immature eggs
within the male testes.

>> SMITH: So you got a sort
of feminization of male fish.

Is that a big, alarming finding
in marine biology,

aquatic biology?

>> Yes, and that has certainly
attracted a lot of concern

and attention.

>> SMITH: Scientific studies
have linked abnormal mutations

in marine creatures,
like intersex,

to exposure to chemical
compounds that mimic

or imitate natural hormones
in the body.

These chemicals are called
endocrine disrupters.

>> Endocrine disrupters are
very, very potent chemicals

at infinitesimally small
quantification.

I mean, you're talking about
parts per million

or parts per billion.

They interrupt the normal way
in which the body

controls everything from
growth and development

to thyroid function
to reproductive function

to estrogen levels,
testosterone levels.

So they're very, very important,
and they are of deep concern

because there are so many
of them now.

>> SMITH: There are thousands
of these worrisome chemicals

that have gotten
into the environment,

and one reason is that they're
part of everything we do.

>> The list of things that bring
these organic pollutants

into our bodies is a long list

and it ranges from home care
products, soaps, toothpaste,

cleaning agents in the household
to things we put on our lawns,

the things that we use
all the time--

the plastic industry, the rubber
industry, lubricants,

fuels, the highways.

>> SMITH: When you see
scientists like Vicky Blazer

cutting open fish, finding
intersex in the male fish,

seeing high levels
of fish kills,

seeing immune systems disrupted,
seeing other damage to the fish,

is that a warning to you,
potentially, about human health?

>> Oh, absolutely.

The warning, not just
from the small mouth bass

in the Potomac,

but from amphibians all
across the country.

You have frogs with six legs,
hermaphroditic frogs,

male frogs with ovaries, female
frogs with male genitalia.

These are the canaries,
the modern canary in the mine

that we haven't been paying
enough attention to.

>> SMITH: So many new chemicals
have emerged lately,

that scientists and regulators
are playing catch up

to industry trying to spot
which chemicals they think

pose new dangers in our water.

>> EPA does not regulate
any of these things yet,

and in many cases there isn't
even the methods to measure them

in the amounts that
they actually have

a biological effect.

>> SMITH: So science and the
regulators are behind the curve

dealing with what industry and
society is producing or wants.

>> Correct.

The head kidney and hind kidney?

>> Were loaded with...

>> SMITH: Playing catch up in
regulating these new chemicals

may be a problem for more
than just these fish.

>> The endocrine system
of fish is very similar

to the endocrine system
of humans.

Fish have thyroid glands,

they have the functional
equivalent of adrenal glands.

They pretty much have all the
same hormone systems as humans,

which, again, is why we use them
as sort of indicator species.

>> SMITH: So if fish are having
intersex, or lesions,

that's kind of spooky.

>> It is.

You know, we can't help but make
that jump to ask the question,

"How are these things
influencing people?"

>> SMITH: To get a handle
on that question,

I headed down river.

Just above Washington,

I found another USGS team
sampling water from the Potomac,

part of a nationwide survey

checking for 300 emerging
contaminants

in our drinking water.

They were looking for well-known
pollutants like pesticides,

and for newly detected
contaminants found

in pharmaceuticals, body
lotions, soaps and deodorants.

In all, they found 85 compounds
on their watch list.

>> Many of them are chemicals
we're just now starting

to be able to even analyze
for in water.

But the treatment isn't intended
to remove those products.

>> SMITH: What makes this
a matter of concern

is that this is the intake
for the Washington Aqueduct,

where one million people
in the DC area

get their drinking water.

Few of us may realize it,

but people downstream use waste
water from people upstream.

The Potomac, like other rivers,

serves as both the place where
we dump our wastewater

and the place where we get
our drinking water.

It's one big continuous
recycling operation

from the toilet or the shower
to the tap.

>> The river flows down,

a community takes water
out of the river,

puts it back through
a wastewater plant

a few miles down, out,
back, out, back.

And with proper regulation
and proper processes

at the wastewater plant
and proper processes

at the drinking water plant,
it works very well.

So we sort of continuously
recycle this.

>> SMITH:
The recycling process works well

for known contaminants.

But what about the new chemicals

for which the EPA has not yet
set safety standards?

How tough is the challenge
just to keep up

with all that new sources
of pollutants?

>> As new elements come in--

synthetics, herbicides,
pesticides, pharmaceuticals--

as those things enter the water
stream in concentrations

because of more advanced
development,

more human activity,
more animal activity,

more commercial activity,

those things,
as they get in the river,

make it harder for us
to do our job.

There's no question about that.

>> SMITH: Not just harder but
actually impossible to stop

all the new contaminants
according to the USGS findings,

because the old filters
weren't designed

to catch the new threats.

>> We sampled the finished water
at the Washington Aqueduct

and we found about two-thirds
of the compounds we detected

were still detected
in finished water.

>> SMITH:
So you're saying

that roughly two-thirds of these
emerging contaminants

that you found
in the river water

at the intakes for
the Washington Aqueduct

came all the way through
the filtering system

and were in the drinking water,
the tap water in the District?

>> Yeah, right, and
that's what we saw

in all the studies
that were done.

>> SMITH: Denver's findings
mirrored what USGS has found

all across the country.

Everywhere they saw lots
of new contaminants

in America's drinking water,
even if at low doses.

Were you surprised
by the findings

of this USGS study or did you...

did that fit with what you
thought was probably going on?

>> I was surprised by the number
of different compounds

that were detectable.

I knew we were swimming
in a sea of chemical soup,

but I didn't realize the soup
was quite as concentrated.

>> SMITH:
You talk about a soup,

some people have used the term
"toxic cocktail."

Is there a danger that if a
level of a particular compound

were acceptable and another
one were acceptable,

that you start to put
a bunch of them together

and then that's no longer
a safe level?

>> You put your finger
on one of the real concerns

about toxicology.

It may be safe to have a
little bit of compound "A"

or a little bit of compound "B",

but when the two of them
are together,

there's synergism
and they become really deadly.

>> SMITH: If you were living
in Washington, DC,

would you drink water coming out
of the Potomac?

>> Uh, probably not.

>> SMITH: Because?

>> (chuckles) Because we really
don't know what...

what all is in there.

>> Today, I drink the water
with great confidence

because our water
meets the regulations.

But, of course,

the question is do the
regulations match the threat?

>> SMITH: Were there
endocrine disrupters,

chemical compounds in the
Washington Aqueduct intake water

that were of concern to you

in terms of their potential
impact on human health?

>> Are there chemicals
of concern?

Yes.

I think at this point,
the levels are very, very low.

So I don't have a great deal
of concern

that something needs to be done
imminently,

but it would certainly be nice
to reduce

what's getting into the water.

We can show that people
with higher levels

of some of these chemicals
may have a higher incidence

of a certain kind of effect

than people with lower levels
of these chemicals.

>> SMITH:
Like what kind of effect?

>> There are associations

with what's called male
testicular disgenesis syndrome.

That's a big term
but it means...

>> SMITH: Lower sperm count?

>> Lower sperm count.

>> SMITH: Are we facing
a long-term, slow-motion risk

that we don't recognize because
it's not readily apparent?

>> We are.

There are five million people
being exposed

to endocrine disrupters,
just in the Mid-Atlantic region,

and yet we don't know precisely
how many of them

are going to develop premature
breast cancer,

going to have problems
with reproduction,

going to have all kinds
of congenital anomalies

of the male genitalia,
things that are happening.

We know they're happening,

but they're happening
at a broad, low level

so that they don't raise
the alarm in the general public.

>> SMITH: Do you know what
the safe levels are?

>> In most cases, we don't know
what the safe levels are,

and some of the new science
is suggesting that levels

that we used to think were safe
may, in fact, not be safe.

>> SMITH: For humans?

>> For humans.

So we're finding in certain
cases that much lower levels

than we previously thought were
a problem may, in fact,

have the potential to harm

at least some segment
of the population.

>> SMITH: Do we have an adequate
system of regulation

or should we be regulating
on a different standard?

>> I'm not a regulator,
I'm a researcher.

But in my personal opinion,
I would like to know

that a chemical is unlikely
to cause harm

before we expose
our population to it.

>> SMITH: It's our failure
to control toxic chemicals

before they cause trouble
in the environment

that haunts our waters
all across the nation...

places like Puget Sound,

which I've come to know well
in recent years.

The sound, which lies
off the coast of Seattle,

is a place I've come to cherish
as a phenomenal resource,

a gorgeous natural playground,
gateway to the Pacific,

and historically, a treasure
house of fish and wildlife.

But today, the sound
is in peril.

>> I would put Puget Sound
in the intensive care unit.

The situation is critical.

We've known for decades that
Puget Sound had serious issues,

but we're at a point now

where the species that are
almost extinct are telling us

we've got some real bottom-line
problems here.

>> SMITH: Take these regional
icons-- the killer whales

or orcas.

They're a major tourist
attraction.

But increasingly, Puget Sound
orcas are being closely studied

by scientists as a barometer of
the health of the entire sound.

To see what scientists
are learning,

I headed out with Brad Hanson,
a team leader with NOAA,

the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.

>> Over there!

>> Park it over here?

>> Yep.

>> SMITH: Hanson and his
colleagues have been studying

the orca population
for several years.

Why study these whales?

>> They're the top predator
in the food chain, so they're

essentially accumulating
all the contaminants.

They're the last stop
in the food chain.

And so...

>> SMITH: They're a laboratory,
in a way.

>> Well, sure.

>> SMITH: A laboratory that
tells us what's going on

in the whole ecosystem.

>> Yes.

>> SMITH:
The orca story is troubling.

In one year,
seven local orcas died.

Their population is now down
to 86, so low that, in 2005,

NOAA listed Puget Sound orcas
as an endangered species.

To figure out why the orca
population is in decline,

Hanson's team goes out after
biological samples.

You get up pretty close to these
whales in order

to take samples,
at some point, right?

>> We get within just
four or five meters.

>> SMITH: Four or five meters--
so, that's up close.

>> Yep.

>> SMITH: They shoot blunt-nosed
darts into the orcas

and extract small samples
of blubber.

That blubber is sent to the lab
to be tested

for a slew of contaminants,

especially telltale toxins
like PCBs.

The lab results have been
alarming.

>> Our research over the last
ten to 13 years has been able

to demonstrate that these
killer whales

are the most PCB-contaminated
marine mammals in the world.

So we're very, very concerned
about what that might mean

to their health.

>> SMITH: PCBs are
cancer-causing chemicals,

so toxic that Congress banned
them three decades ago.

But they keep showing up.

>> PCBs are probably the number
one persistent contaminant

of concern anywhere
in the Northern Hemisphere.

They bio-cumulate in food webs.

>> SMITH: You mean
they build up.

>> They build up in food webs
and in organisms.

We have trouble getting
rid of them.

We have a lot of trouble getting
them out of our system.

When I say "we," I mean humans,
rats, killer whales,

harbor seals--
doesn't really matter.

>> SMITH: Increasingly,
scientist worry that PCBs

are a problem not just
for orca whales.

>> These animals are eating
wild fish.

Wild fish is good for us, too.

But if there's contaminants
in it, it's going to have

an adverse impact on us.

So that's the thing,
that's why these animals

are important sentinel species,

not just for the ecosystem in
general, but also for humans.

>> SMITH: At the Center
for Whale Research,

Director Ken Balcomb has been
keeping records

for three decades on the whales
that make Puget Sound

their regular home.

>> Fewer whales are making it
to maturity.

The population is declining.

We are seeing...

probably the next 20 years,
we'll be witnessing

the departure of this
population.

>> SMITH: You think they're
gone, they're going to die out.

>> I've already told our
government folks

that we can go through this
for about 20 more years

if we don't provide a remedy,

and we will see the end of this
population.

>> SMITH: Balcomb and his staff
know these whales

so well by sight that they can
track them from birth to death.

What are these charts?

>> These are the family trees
of all the whales

we've been studying for the past
32 years.

>> SMITH: The tombstone markers,
Balcomb told me,

underscore a worrisome trend
among the youngest,

most vulnerable, orcas.

These older whales up here, they
died-- that's kind of normal.

But to have so many down here,
these younger whales dying.

Is that a bad sign?

>> That's the distressing part
is the mortality pattern

we're seeing now is that young
whales are dying

way before they even mature.

>> SMITH: He's alarmed
at the high levels of PCBs

that Hanson's team found
in younger whales,

which absorb PCBs
from their mother's milk.

Are there enough parallels

between the way the human body
works, the chemistry and biology

of the human body,
and the whales

so that we can actually take
lessons from them?

>> Yes.

We can take lessons from not
only the whales, but the seals

and the fish.

And it's been demonstrated
in the health statistics

in especially arctic
environments, cold environments

where there's a high fat diet,

and the children of these high
Arctic people are suffering

these same problems--
immune deficiencies,

reproductive problems.

All of these are
affecting humans,

as well as the other mammals.

>> SMITH: At NOAA testing labs
like this one, scientists have

established that king salmon
in Puget Sound

are much more heavily
contaminated with PCBs

than salmon in other Pacific
coastal waters.

>> Everything we see points to
Puget Sound being a hot spot

for PCBs and a persistent
problem.

We've seen contamination
of animals.

We've seen no improvement
in the levels of PCBs

in the last 20-odd years,

despite regulations implemented
in the 1970s.

And that, to me, indicates there
are continuous inputs

from land-based sources,
from the sediments,

and delivering them right into
that food web.

>> SMITH: One big reason PCBs
are a persistent problem

is that it takes so long
to clean up places

like the Duwamish River,
Seattle's industrial corridor.

Some of Seattle's heaviest
industry settled here

decades ago, and today, it's
the region's largest hot spot

for PCBs.

>> My name is B.J. Cummings.

I represent the Duwamish River
Cleanup Coalition.

>> SMITH: B.J. Cummings leads
tours of the river,

but this isn't your
typical tourist outing.

It's an environmental
wakeup call.

>> The EPA did an investigation
here on the Duwamish River

about ten years ago,
and concluded

that industrial history here
had left behind

such a legacy of toxic
pollution that the river

was declared a federal Superfund
site in 2001.

>> SMITH: Superfund is one
of EPA's big sticks.

It was the regulatory program
created in 1980 to clean up

America's worst pollution
problems.

>> Your typical Superfund site
used to be

factory, pipe, Superfund site

right at the bottom
of your pipe.

That's not what we have here.

We have what's called
a mega-site.

We have a five, five-and-a-half-
mile stretch of river,

end to end, that's being
investigated for clean-up.

This is one of the largest
Superfund sites in the country.

The river was listed
as a Superfund site

because of an accumulation,
a legacy of toxic pollution

that has built up in the mud
at the bottom of the river.

>> There's a direct link between
contaminated sediments

in certain areas and
contamination of the food web

above those sediments.

In fact, one might even think of
the PCBs riding an elevator up

from the sediments, up into
plankton, up into little fish,

big fish, harbor seals, killer
whales, eagles, humans.

>> SMITH: The toxic buildup
in the Duwamish River bottom

is the product of more
than a half century

of industrial development
along the river.

Boeing, for example,
the area's biggest corporation,

had its main operations here
during World War II.

>> We are the builders.

We are the builders of the B-17.

With our hands a million strong,
we milled and drilled and...

>> SMITH: The success of Boeing
mirrored the 20th-century boom

in the American economy,

an era when industrial progress
brought unprecedented expansion.

>> Ours are the hands that build
the Queen, the B-17.

>> SMITH: But that progress
also left behind

an unprecedented amount
of pollution,

or what's called
legacy pollutants.

>> The term "legacy pollutants"
is when...

it's historical practices.

What was acceptable
in the '40s and '50s is...

we would find very objectionable
today, in the '90s...

in the '80s and beyond.

People did not know the damage
that some of these materials

caused at the time.

They did not know the long-term
effects of them

that we do today.

>> SMITH: PCBs are a classic
legacy pollutant

found here at Boeing, a toxic
chemical once widely used

by industry, often as
a high-stress lubricant

in power stations and
also in building materials.

Frequently, it takes a lot
of detective work

to find hidden PCBs.

So, Steve, you found
a contamination problem

in the flight line out here?

>> Yeah, it's this material

that we see between
the concrete panels.

It's called joint compound,
material that was installed

in the late '60s, contained
very high levels of PCBs

and, you know, since we had made
this discovery, you know,

in the late '90s, we have now
removed about 50 miles

of this.

>> SMITH: 50 miles of this black
tar looking stuff?

>> Yeah, this material
throughout all of the Boeing

facilities here
in the Northwest.

>> SMITH: Is that right?

Why was it so hard to find?

>> Well, it wasn't obvious
to us.

It was... you know, normally
when people talk about PCBs,

you think about electrical
equipment,

you think about hydraulics.

That's where normally PCBs
are used.

The fact that they were used
in something that was right

in front of us was difficult.

It was really difficult
that we... we overlooked it.

>> SMITH: Making sure that
Boeing doesn't overlook

any of its legacy pollutants
is the job of Sean Blocker,

a former Marine who has been
EPA's point man

on the cleanup at Boeing.

>> What I want to talk about
today is basically

some additional data that we
have that's on the sediments

outside the current boundary
of the cleanup

for the Boeing Plant-2.

The significance of the Boeing
facility is the number

of contaminants that originate
from the facility.

It has over 24 things
in the ground water,

40-some odd different things
that are in the soil

that are above clean-up levels.

So it's the biggest accumulation
of contaminants in that area.

>> SMITH: From the get-go,
Boeing and EPA have clashed

over how to clean up those
legacy pollutants,

and the arguments have led
to long delays.

When were you first ready to go
with a clean-up plan?

>> We submitted a plan to EPA
in 1999, when, you know,

to dredge... we call it an
interim measure

to take what is adjacent
to Boeing and...

and excavate that material.

>> SMITH: Boeing says that,
over a decade ago,

it was ready to clean up
and all that held it up was

bureaucratic red tape
from the EPA.

>> I would disagree with that.

From my review of what they were
going to do, I didn't think

they had fully defined where all
the bad stuff was.

They didn't know the totality
of what the contamination was

even in the groundwater or soil.

>> SMITH: But you obviously had
a higher threshold

for "let's get to the bottom of
how bad this pollution is"

than Boeing did.

>> Boeing is doing what they're
asked to do-- no more, no less.

>> SMITH: So time and again,
Blocker pressed Boeing

to do more-- more work
and more tests.

By now, Boeing has spent
$80 million on testing

and interim cleanups.

>> There's over 500 sampling
locations at this facility

that have been drilled over
time, you know.

>> SMITH: And if we came here
ten years ago,

how many would there have been?

>> 50.

>> SMITH: So, hundreds more have
been drilled

because of this back-and-forth
with the EPA.

>> That's correct.

>> SMITH: Not only has Boeing
been feuding with the EPA,

but it's been locked
in a fierce battle

with the city of Seattle, which
used to operate a steam plant

next door to Boeing field.

Typical of Superfund sites,
these two powerful neighbors

have been wrangling over who's
responsible for PCBs flowing

through this ditch, or flume,
when it rains.

The flume runs from the
now-defunct steam plant

through Boeing's territory
to the river.

Boeing says it's
the city's PCBs.

So, was this just
the city steam plant,

or did Boeing and other people
put storm drains into this

and use it?

>> Pretty much it was just
for the cooling water

from the steam plant.

>> SMITH:
The city flat-out disagrees,

and it has taken Boeing
to court.

>> PCBs are coming by
connections of other people

to our ditch.

They come through
drainage lines.

They come from other properties,

most specifically Boeing's
property.

>> SMITH: So Boeing was
attaching its drainage pipes

to your flume,
sending some of its dirty stuff

down your flume to the river.

>> There have been over 20 lines
attached to our ditch

that came from the Boeing
property.

>> SMITH: 20 lines?

>> Yeah.

>> SMITH: So it's got to be an
endless argument with Boeing

over whose line put the dirty
stuff in that flume.

>> It's a continuing argument.

>> SMITH: And that argument is
holding up the big cleanup

on the Duwamish River.

Jay Manning, who heads

Washington's Department
of Ecology,

which helps EPA supervise
the clean-up,

showed me the cost of this
continued delay to Puget Sound.

>> We're looking at four
very large outfalls

of drainage pipes that carry
storm water

from more than 30 square miles
of this area.

You can see the one there
to the right.

>> SMITH: So this is an
industrial dumping ground,

in effect.

>> This storm water drains
a very large industrial area.

>> SMITH: Are you all still
finding PCBs

and other contaminants
in that water?

>> Unfortunately,
the storm water coming out

of those drain pipes,
we're still detecting PCBs.

This is going to cost millions
to clean up,

maybe tens of millions, and
owning 90% of that liability

is not a place you want to be.

So these folks, who are not
stupid, are busy

trying to prove that it's
somebody other than them

that is the source.

>> SMITH: Pointing the finger
at everybody else.

>> That's right.

And they are trying to prove--
probably not that they have

no liability, because that's
pretty hard to do--

but proving that they have
very little

compared to their neighbor.

That's what it's about,
and it's about money.

>> SMITH: Ultimately, the issues
of cleanup-- time and money--

are tied to a larger question
for all of us.

That is, how clean do we expect
our waterways to be?

Here on the Duwamish, the state
has posted warnings not to eat

local fish and shellfish because
of pollution.

And so the fight now is over
whether the river can be

cleaned up enough to let
the locals fish the river

once again without risk.

>> What we determined was that
the most sensitive population

we had out there were our Native
Americans that eat the fish

out of the Duwamish.

>> SMITH: And they eat a lot
more fish than most of us.

>> They do.

>> SMITH: And so that was
the standard you wanted to set--

clean it up so the tribes can
eat the fish safely without

getting poisoned from PCBs.

>> Yes.

>> SMITH: Okay, and Boeing
objected to that?

>> Basically, they don't feel
that that stretch of the river

can ever be returned to where
you could harvest

these kind of fish
and shellfish.

We disagree with that.

>> I think people need to
understand is that there are

going to be certain uses
of the Duwamish River

that aren't going to be possible
in the future.

I'll give you an example.

I don't think people are going
to be able to subsistence-fish

out of the... the species that
are in the Duwamish.

I think we have to set
reasonable expectations

for cleanup in industrial areas.

>> SMITH: Where do you come down
on that?

How clean is clean?

Do we need to get rivers back
to where people can fish

and safely eat the fish without
fear to their health?

>> That's the goal.

That is the goal.

That has to be the goal, because
every one of those rivers

and streams are going
into Puget Sound,

so it's not as if it's about
that river or that stream alone.

It's about the whole ecosystem.

>> SMITH: Just across the river
from Boeing,

the threat of legacy pollution,

and the question of how clean is
clean, became personal.

Right here, in South Park,
where, in 2004, the community

was rocked by news that some of
its streets and people's yards

were contaminated with PCBs.

>> People in South Park,
particularly people

with families with small
children got incredibly nervous.

I mean, out and out scared about
what this might mean.

"I push my kid's stroller down
that street every day."

"I go down there and I fish."

"My dog runs along that
waterfront."

"What does this mean for me?

What does this mean
for my health?"

>> I mean, you're trying to do
the best for your kids,

and all of a sudden something
like this comes and then...

>> It feels so scary,
what you're saying.

>> She's talking about PCBs,
cancer-causing microbes

banned in the '70s,
but taking an emotional toll

on the residents of South Park
today.

>> SMITH: The city of Seattle
realized it had a crisis

and moved quickly to pave
the contaminated streets,

clean up the polluted yards,

and tell people how to take
safety precautions.

Suddenly, South Park,
a largely immigrant,

working-class neighborhood
surrounded by industry,

was galvanized into action.

Residents demanded
a long-promised cleanup

of an abandoned industrial site
called Malarkey Asphalt.

>> Malarkey Asphalt
for years operated

directly across the street
from homes in South Park,

and was a really, really
dirty business.

For many years there was open
dumping on the riverbank.

There was waste oil that was
sprayed in the area

to keep the dust on the unpaved
streets down,

and that contaminated the roads
and yards,

right in people's gardens
around the property.

>> SMITH: Years earlier, the old
Malarkey site had been bought

by the port of Seattle,
which did a PCB cleanup

on part of Malarkey's property.

But people in South Park
suspected there were still

many more undiscovered PCB
hotspots

upland from the riverbank
at Malarkey.

>> So the neighborhood said,
"Go take some tests there.

Tell us what's there."

EPA and the port said, "Oh, no,
no, we did the upland.

It's finished."

We eventually were able
to succeed in getting

just a few more tests.

"Just assure us.

Show us it's okay."

>> We were finding numbers
that were higher than...

>> SMITH: Doug Hotchkiss,
the port's manager

for the Malarkey site,
ran tests and what he found

surprised everyone.

What was the hottest spot
you found?

How high was it?

>> The hottest spot for PCBs
was right in this area here,

and it was about 9,000 parts
per million.

>> SMITH: 9,000?

And the federal limit is 25.

I mean, so this was
a really hot spot!

>> Yeah, and luckily, it was
under asphalt, but it was still

something that,
even under asphalt,

you couldn't just leave there.

>> SMITH: So Hotchkiss drafted
a plan to clean up Malarkey,

but it backfired.

>> We would be cleaning up to
25 parts per million,

which was the cleanup level
that...

that EPA had accepted before.

>> SMITH: And how did
the community take that?

How'd they react?

>> They were...
they were not happy with it.

They didn't find it acceptable.

>> SMITH: In fact, South Park
was up in arms,

insisting on a cleanup
to the residential standard

of one part per million.

>> Duwamish River Clean-Up
Coalition,

residents from South Park,
started calling up

port commissioners and
explaining the problem to them.

They got in vans and buses

and went down where the port
commission was meeting,

and one after another got up
and told the port commission

that they were worried
about their health,

and that the port commission
had the responsibility

to the community to make sure
that that cleanup would be safe

for the entire community
to use.

>> Well, it was a very
emotionally charged meeting.

I wouldn't necessarily say
it was confrontational.

But it was a lot of emotion
in the room.

And I remember a particular
episode where a young mother

came up to the stand and said,
"You know, if it's only

a question of money,
how can you forsake

the children of
South Park?"

And that was something that
really hit home to me.

>> SMITH: So the elected
port commissioners,

sensitive to public opinion,
backed down.

They adopted the more protective
residential standard

at twice the cost.

>> I think that this effort
has been successful

because this community has been
uncompromising in speaking up

for itself and in insisting
that people listen.

We essentially have a community
here that has been

on the fringes of any kind
of economic or political power

in the city of Seattle
for many decades.

So it's a community that has
only recently re-found

its voice.

>> SMITH: By finding its voice,
South Park redefined

the meaning of "clean."

And the community is now
at work

developing riverfront habitat
zones at Malarkey

and elsewhere along
the Duwamish.

>> In the absence of a B.J.
Cummings or somebody like her

who is out there on the water,

knowledgeable, aware
of what's happening

and poking and prodding and
asking us the hard questions,

we would not be making the
progress that we're making.

>> SMITH: The greatest threats
to our waterways

are often invisible
to the naked eye.

Evidence crops up in unlikely
places, like Alki Beach,

across Elliott Bay
from downtown Seattle.

It's a favorite spot
for scuba divers.

But taking to the water here
isn't for the faint of heart.

Temperatures in the Puget
can be in the 40s.

But for the adventurous,
underwater exploration offers

a unique perspective
on the marine environment.

Today, we saw a giant
Pacific octopus

underneath the "Honeybear,"
which is a little boat

that sunk out here.

It lives underneath the bow
of the boat.

>> SMITH: It also provides
a close-up view

of the hidden threat to Puget
Sound, like this drainage pipe,

one of the main outfalls for
Seattle's rainwater runoff.

>> We swam by the end
of the storm water drain;

it's pretty dramatic.

The end of the pipe creates a
brown noxious soup of nastiness

that is unbelievable
and kind of dramatic

and a little bit scary.

>> SMITH: "Unbelievable" because
the water looks so good

from up here.

So we're looking at something we
think is clean, and underneath,

you can see diving there...

>> It's not clean.

>> SMITH: It's dirty.

>> It's not clean.

When we...

when we see that thing running
in full flow, we turn around

and we swim the other way
quickly.

There is just this
unbelievable...

>> SMITH: Gunk.

>> Gunk coming out of the end
of this pipe.

This is our front yard.

Would you allow your front yard
to be sick?

>> SMITH: This is sick?

>> This is sick.

Doesn't look sick,
but it is sick.

>> SMITH: What's making
this water so sick

is what scientists have now
labeled the number one menace

to our waterways,
storm water runoff.

In Seattle, peak time
for storm water runoff

is during fall and winter, when
the rain comes down in torrents.

>> Everywhere that rain falls
and hits the ground,

it's going to pick up something.

It might be nothing more
hazardous than dirt,

or it might be PCBs.

It might be some toxic
pesticide, and it will travel

along with the water into
the nearest drainage ditch,

into the nearest swale,
into a creek, into a river,

and ultimately
into Puget Sound.

And whatever pollutants that
water picks up on its journey

to Puget Sound, it's going
to deposit in Puget Sound.

>> We put in about 150,000
pounds a day

of untreated toxics
into Puget Sound.

We thought all the way along
that it was like a toilet,

to be honest with you.

What you put in, you flush out,
and it goes out to the ocean,

it gets diluted.

We know that's not true.

It's like a bathtub, so what you
put in stays there.

>> SMITH: The pollution
in storm water runoff

in major cities like Seattle,
or in suburban and urban areas

across the country, is massive.

Yet until recently,
it was little controlled.

The original Clean Water Act
didn't regulate storm water

at all, though some limits have
been adopted since.

But the problem remains poorly
understood,

because so much of the pollution
is invisible.

>> People go nuts over
a 50-gallon oil spill

because you can see it,
and it's really nasty looking.

When you see it on the water,
it is impressive how horrible

it looks, and so oil spills
aren't invisible.

They're highly visible
and they galvanize people

like nothing else.

>> SMITH:
What about the invisible?

What about the auto traffic?

What kind of "oil spill" is
there from our ordinary living?

>> Based on actual sampling
in the Puget Sound basin,

we have estimated that the
volume of oil that is carried

into Puget Sound by storm water
run off is equal

to the oil spill in Prince
William Sound

that the "Exxon Valdez" spilled.

Every two years, the storm water
in Puget Sound carries

that volume of oil
into Puget Sound.

>> SMITH: The heart of the
problem is concrete, asphalt,

streets, sidewalks, buildings,
shopping centers,

suburban housing, rooftops--
hard surfaces,

what scientists call
impervious surfaces,

that block the downpour of rain
from naturally sinking

into the ground.

>> How the land is developed,
how intensely, will have

a direct impact on the quality
of storm water.

You take down a forested area
and replace it

with pavement or a rooftop.

And instead of almost all
of the water slowly moving

through the forest canopy
and down to the ground

and infiltrating down
into groundwater

where it will move slowly,

that water, the day it lands,
within minutes

of it hitting the ground,
it's going to be gone.

>> SMITH: And so scientists,
environmentalists

and regulators all say
that combating pollution

is not just a matter
of regulating industry,

but the key to storm water
runoff is land use--

how we develop
and use our land.

King County, I learned, has
become a laboratory for testing

the politics of land use.

It's an area bigger than
the state of Rhode Island,

home not just to
Seattle and 1.8 million people,

but two-thirds of it
is still forest.

So it's an area where
environmentalists want

to strictly control the pace
of development.

And the man who has been leading
the charge is long-time

King County chief executive
Ron Sims.

>> You have to protect
our forests.

You have to,
and our agricultural areas.

You must.

Because if we don't protect
them, our water quality

will be significantly
diminished.

And why sacrifice clean water
for growth?

>> SMITH: Sims says his mission
has been to save Puget Sound

by protecting critical areas
like forests.

Way up here, 45 miles east of
Seattle, he paid $22 million

in tax money to buy development
rights on 90,000 acres

of forest, meaning that no
developer could build

on that land.

>> People were going to build
their homes here.

They were going to have
their supermarkets here,

their gas stations here.

We stopped it.

We stopped it forever.

>> SMITH: What does saving this
timberland have to do

with Puget Sound?

>> The waters that come off
this 90,000 acres flow

into the Snoqualmie River, which
flows into Lake Washington,

which flows into Puget Sound.

We need pristine waters coming
from this timberland

into the Puget Sound,
and so this property

is absolutely critical to it.

>> SMITH: Washington State's
Growth Management Act

directs local government
leaders like Sims

to concentrate new growth in
cities and to prevent sprawl

in lightly populated
rural areas.

For King County, Sims pioneered
a critical areas ordinance

that limits just how much
forest and woodland

property owners can cut down.

Sims targets places like this,

a five-acre, one-family
plot of land that belongs

to Howard and Patti Van Laeken.

>> Back in 2004,
King County passed

this critical areas ordinance
that takes away the usage

of 65% of your property if you
don't have it cleared off.

And we didn't have ours cleared
off at the time, so we're...

we cannot touch 65%
of our property.

>> SMITH: So why would you want
to clear more than 35%

of this wonderful forest?

>> What we originally planned
when we were...

in 1980 when we bought it was
that we could subdivide

and maybe give our kids a parcel
of land

to build a house on or...

and/or sell off part of the
property for the proceeds,

to be able to keep our house
and retire.

>> SMITH:
How do you feel about that?

>> Rather angry.

>> Very angry.

Very angry.

It's our property.

We have been paying taxes
on this property since l980,

and we can't even plant grass?

>> SMITH: Angry at whom?

Angry at what?

>> I'm angry at the King County
government,

because they more or less took
away our property rights

without any compensation
for our property.

>> We're getting the shaft.

They're putting the burden
on the small landowner,

not on everybody.

>> SMITH: The Van Laeken's
problem actually stems

from a zoning ordinance passed
in the early 1980s

that barred subdividing
properties under five acres.

But to many rural landowners,
Sims' new ordinance

was the last straw,

and they formed the Citizens
Alliance for Property Rights.

I met with several of them one
evening over a beer in Issequaw.

>> We're in the same position
that the blacks were

in the l950s.

>> Absolutely.

>> We are calling,
we are crying,

we are doing everything we can

to talk to those who have their
hands on the levers,

and they aren't listening.

>> SMITH: One throbbing refrain

was resentment against
political domination

by the urban majority,
which outnumbers rural voters

nearly five to one.

>> We talk about critical
areas ordinance

like it's a nice little
one-page thing?

We're talking about over 400
pages of amendments

to existing law.

400. Over 400 pages.

>> SMITH: How much
of the frustration out here

is a matter not just
of a single ordinance,

but of a series of regulations
that feel onerous?

How much of this has built up
over time?

>> Much of it has built up.

It started in '88 with the
sensitive areas ordinance.

In 2000, we had a gigantic
down-zoning fight.

And then, the coup de grace

was the 2004 critical
area ordinance.

>> SMITH: So it's an
accumulation of things.

>> It's very much an
accumulation of regulations.

>> SMITH: They told me people
were so steamed up

that Ron Sims rarely dared
to come

to their part of the county.

People on his staff say he's
gotten threats.

Do you believe that?

>> If it wasn't for us,

I bet somebody would have gone
for 30-ought-sixes.

>> SMITH: You're talking about
they would go

for 30-ought-sixes?

Guns?

>> I'm not saying they would.

I'm saying they're terrified.

I'm saying there are people who
are so angry, if we didn't have

a way to direct that to get some
results, I know there are

people in this county that
probably would have shot

a few key people,
they are so angry.

>> SMITH:
Did you get any threats?

>> I always get threats.

>> SMITH:
I mean serious threats?

>> I always get serious threats.

>> SMITH:
Do you take them seriously?

>> I cannot restrict my life
and what I do based upon people

who are angry and people who
wish to threaten me.

>> SMITH:
You say it wasn't pleasant.

>> It wasn't pleasant.

People were yelling at me.

We got a lot of nasty phone
calls and e-mails,

and it wasn't fun being
on television.

And, quite frankly, I was
abandoned by a lot of people.

Even the environmental community
at the time were saying,

"Ron, you might be too
heavy-handed."

>> SMITH: But Sims has not
backed down.

He asserts that the county
ordinance was prompted

by scientific analysis of runoff
water flows,

and he gets solid political
backing

from an overwhelming majority
in King County.

What do you say to critics who
say, or the people who say,

"Look, they've taken my land,
in effect.

I can only use a third
of my land.

Two-thirds of my land I've got
to leave in forest and bushes."

>> No one has lost the value
or use of their land.

There's not one case in King
County where anybody's been

able to show that.

>> SMITH: You mean nobody's come
forward and said,

"I want to do this
on my property"

and you've turned them down?

>> What people have found
is that we're not going

to allow them to develop their
land in terms of building

a lot of homes on it,

but the use of their land they
still enjoy it, to this day.

>> SMITH:
The rural people are saying,

"This burden all falls on us.

The city people don't have
any burden on them."

How do you respond?

>> The city people have far more
burdens and restrictions

on their land than anyone
in the rural area has.

Far more.

And they have far more
regulation on their land.

>> Folks, stay tuned.

This thing with the...

another round on the lawsuit
and the enforcement...

>> SMITH: Some angry rural
property owners filed suit,

and a state appeals court
has struck down

part of Sims' critical areas
ordinance.

That issue is now before
the state supreme court.

>> If the Supreme Court upholds
the court of appeals' decision,

it'll be the abandonment of
everything that this state

has voted on consistently,

which is they want
environmental protection here.

>> SMITH: While the legal drama
plays out,

the lesson for Ron Sims
is unmistakable.

>> We will never recover Puget
Sound if we don't get a hold

of the storm water.

I never imagined that
that body of water

would just fundamentally be
unhealthy for whales

and for salmon and all the
things that make it a rich,

wonderful environment.

We may, in the next couple of
decades, when I'm 80 years old,

if we don't do anything,
people will say, "You...

"your generation, you lost it.

You weren't willing to step up
and save it."

>> SMITH: Back on the East
Coast, near Chesapeake Bay,

the problems of development
sprawl

that King County is fighting

have played out in the suburbs
of Washington, D.C.

Already 17 million people live
in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

In recent years, 10,000 more
moved in every month.

And every month, 3,000 acres of
forest were lost to development.

(sirens blaring)

>> Virginia, the outer loop
heading toward Tysons Corner,

reporting very heavy traffic
westbound...

>> SMITH: The sprawl took off
decades ago out here

in Northern Virginia,

about five miles south
of the Potomac River

in a suburb of Washington
called Tysons Corner.

Today, Tysons is a case study in
the harmful impact

of unchecked growth.

But 60 years ago, Tysons was
just a rural crossroads

with a country store.

>> As World War II ended,
it was a land of dairy farms

and truck farms
and abandoned farms,

and relatively
little development.

And it was wide open.

The government then,
the political leaders then,

the business leaders were
all in favor of doing

what was necessary to
accommodate the growth

that was coming.

>> SMITH: And for growth to
happen, what developers needed

was infrastructure-- sewers
and roads and, especially,

a highway around Washington,
D.C., called the Beltway.

>> When you put the beltway at
exactly the location it was,

which created about 1,800 acres
in the center of those...

in the convergence
of those roads,

you had a fabulous
development site.

>> SMITH: With taxpayers footing
the bill for infrastructure,

Tysons became a transportation
hub, a commercial center

and a multibillion-dollar
bonanza for developers.

>> The basic approach of most
land speculators who are...

who are the site developers is
to buy a piece of land

that's farmland, and that is
zoned as farmland

and taxed as farmland.

>> SMITH: So it's cheap.

>> It's cheap.

And then get it re-planned
and rezoned as subdivision

with some retail and
commercial components,

and the land value will go up
dramatically.

>> SMITH: So the formula is
buy land cheap from farmers;

get the county and the state
to put in the roads, the sewers,

the schools-- all the stuff that
makes it attractive...

>> Yep.

>> SMITH: ...and then turn
around and sell it

for commercial or residential
at 30, 40 times the cost.

>> That's correct.

>> SMITH: The formula worked
like magic for Tysons.

Over the next 45 years,
it became one of America's

largest commercial developments

and most successful
retail centers.

Now, 120,000 people work
at Tysons every day.

>> Tysons is the size of
downtown Boston or Phoenix.

There is nothing in this country
of the scale and size

and complexity of a Tysons.

>> Tysons Corner is one of the
most successful office centers

in the country; one of the most
successful retail centers

in the country

and the combination of those
two factors make it

the economic engine
for Fairfax County

and really northern Virginia.

>> SMITH: An economic engine
driven by America's love affair

with the automobile.

>> In Tysons Corners, you drive
in for breakfast

and you get into your car and
you drive to your first meeting.

Then you drive to the next
meeting and then, you know,

if I have to take some checks
to the bank,

even though it's for a good
golfer barely a long nine iron,

you got to get back in your car
and drive back.

There's no way
in Tysons Corners

that anybody gets around
without a car.

>> SMITH: The car built Tysons.

It also built gridlock that
is now strangling Tysons.

>> We're about halfway through
the afternoon rush hour.

Maybe.

>> SMITH: Almost no one
lives here,

practically everyone commutes.

>> Extremely heavy traffic that
extends way beyond the Beltway.

>> The highway system is choked.

And we can't sustain
the model of sprawl

in support of the economic
engine that has happened

over the last 20 years.

>> SMITH:
Can't sustain the model.

You mean Tysons Corner has sort
of reached the limit?

>> Tysons Corner is about as
built out as it can be

if dependent on the automobile,
because it exacerbates

what's already a complicated but
troubling environmental future.

>> SMITH: Environmentalists call
Tysons a nightmare

for the Potomac River
and Chesapeake Bay.

It's a fortress
of impervious surfaces.

>> You look at Tysons
and there is now today...

as we are sitting here today,

there's about 46 million square
feet of development in Tysons.

In addition to that, there is 40
million square feet of parking.

>> SMITH: 40 million?

>> 40 million square feet
of parking.

So the amount of development
and the amount of parking

is about equal,
and that translates

into close to 170,000
parking spaces.

And when we talk about
impervious surfaces,

I mean that's just unbelievable.

>> When you put down this
endless amount

of concrete parking lots
and rooftops, rain hits it--

it washes really quickly into
the streams.

It's going to cut away at those
stream banks.

It's going to pick up sediment.

It's going to be carrying all
kinds of pollutants in it.

It's going to go flying down
into the Potomac,

and the Potomac feeds
into the Chesapeake Bay,

and everything starts
in these little streams.

So every time you lose
a little stream,

you lose one more healthy piece
of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

>> SMITH: What many see as the
ecological disaster of Tysons

epitomizes the collision
of development

and clean water nationwide.

More than three quarters
of Americans live

on or near our waterways.

The plague of Tysons-style
sprawl has recently threatened

neighboring Loudoun County.

But here in Loudoun,
environmental leaders fashioned

a new tactic to counter
aggressive development

and to protect Chesapeake Bay.

>> Your getting up
in front of a crowd and saying,

"The bay's in tough shape, and
the pollution's getting worse,

and we've got to change
our lifestyles to save it,"

really doesn't get you anywhere.

But you can get people to do the
things that we need to do

to save the Bay if we can frame
them in ways that...

that correspond to what
they really care about.

>> SMITH: In Loudoun, what
people care most about

is traffic and taxes,

two issues the environmentalists
leveraged

to launch a political campaign
against developers in 2006.

>> How do big developers plan to
deal with our traffic problems?

They want to build more homes
and apartments

in our area-- 33,000 more.

That will mean thousands of more
cars and more traffic.

>> SMITH:
Tapping into local concerns,

citizen activists organized
to carry the fight.

>> It resonated a lot
with residents when we spoke

about transportation issues.

We spoke about tax increases
that would occur

and when we spoke about schools,

how our children would
constantly have

to change boundaries.

>> I think a lot of us got
involved just for the whole

quality of life issue.

It went from the
33,000 homes meant

an additional 300,000 car trips
on the local roads.

It meant higher taxes.

The schools that had
to be built.

The roads that needed
to be built.

It was suburbanizing an area
that was never meant

to be suburbanized.

>> SMITH: Did all this public
outpouring of outrage

stop or slow down this
aggressive growth?

>> The public response
was so overwhelming,

that even the board of
supervisors that was elected

with the support of the
development community

ended up turning down the
proposals that they, the board,

had submitted
in the first place.

>> SMITH:
So they backed off totally.

>> They backed off totally,
and then in the election

that immediately followed that
decision to back off,

they all lost.

Every one of those candidates
was voted out of office.

>> SMITH: They got wiped out?

>> They got wiped out.

>> SMITH: That victory
in Loudoun underscored

that land use is a key to
protecting the environment.

People talk about saving
Chesapeake Bay,

and you've got organizations
that are talking about,

"Let's have a campaign
Bay-wide."

But listening to you, the nuts
and bolts of this thing

sounds as though they have to be
fought out on the local basis,

county by county.

>> I think the conservation
movement has to move away

from wholesale ideas to...

to retailing what we're
talking about.

Things that people deal with
every day: traffic, schools,

the lack of access to the...
the kinds of parks

and open space that people want
on a day-to-day basis,

rising taxes to pay
for the costs

the developers weren't
paying for.

>> SMITH: And the bay
is going to benefit,

but it's not the opening
argument.

>> It's all about making
the protection of the bay

a retail issue.

What we need to market is the
solutions, and market in a way

that people will embrace them,
not market the problem.

>> SMITH: To help save
vulnerable waterways

like the Potomac River
and Chesapeake Bay,

environmentalists
are also touting

a new eco-friendly development
model known as "smart growth."

One of the nation's showcases
for smart growth is right here

in Arlington, Virginia, a short
subway ride across the Potomac

from Washington, and just a few
miles from Tysons Corner.

Smart growth is making suburban
living look a lot more like

city living with a human touch.

What's fascinating
is where are we?

Look up here,
for crying out loud.

>> You're in a downtown, a new
downtown in Arlington County.

>> SMITH: I got a tour from
smart growth advocate

Stewart Schwartz.

>> It's a suburb that's grown up
into a city,

an extension of D.C.'s downtown.

Arlington had no choice
but to build up

to compete
with the outer suburbs.

And from an environmental
perspective,

we love this sort of place
because we're building here

on old parking lots instead
of building out

in forests and farms.

>> SMITH: Arlington's strategy
is to focus development

not around the car,

but around Washington's mass
transit system, known as Metro.

>> Around each of the stations,

we call it a network
of livable communities

and increasingly the world's
cities are being built this way,

Using transit as the spine
for development.

>> SMITH: What's been the track
record in Arlington County

in terms of jobs, development,
congestion on the streets?

>> They've had an explosion
of development in the corridor

over the last 30 years.

They've had tripling
and quadrupling

of the number of residents, the
number of jobs in the corridor,

and it's all been achieved
without an increase in traffic.

>> SMITH: The key to smart
growth is high-density living

combined with mixed-use
development-- commercial,

retail and residential
all mixed together.

>> SMITH: You know,
looking at this,

there are high-rise
buildings here.

I mean, to a certain extent this
kind of looks like Tysons.

It's our image of it, lots of
concrete or brick or whatever.

>> But very different.

Great public spaces here
like this park.

You have shopping you can walk
to right there.

A great bus stop here.

Outdoor cafés.

Probably two to three times the
number of people living here

as do live in Tysons Corner.

And in fact, the future
of Tysons is going to be

in having more people live
in Tysons Corner

and to make Tysons Corner look
a lot more like Arlington.

>> SMITH: In fact, at Tysons,
there's been a tectonic shift

in the mindset
of business leaders.

With the commercial luster
of Tysons fading,

they are now banking
on the planned arrival

of Metro's rapid rail to spur
a new kind of redevelopment.

>> We can't continue
to accommodate cars

and the number of cars
that we have in the past.

I mean, the choice
moving forward is

you do more of the same
and get what you got,

or you change what you did
and build to a new...

a new goal, if you will,
a new culture.

And that culture will be focused
on mass transit.

In essence, designing a place
that is much more

at a human scale,
pedestrian friendly,

that'll be the key
to the success of Tysons

for the next 20 years.

>> SMITH: It's a welcome change
to advocates of Chesapeake Bay.

Remaking Tysons Corner gives
local government a chance

to fix the storm water system,
create parks

and restore green zones
and local streams

feeding into the Potomac
and the bay.

>> So growth is happening,
and we have to accommodate it.

But we can do it better.

We can plan it better.

We can put it
in better locations.

We can put it in places where
we can deal with the impacts

in the most effective way.

>> SMITH: Are you saying
we have a choice?

>> Always.

We have a stark choice.

We have a very dramatic choice.

If we do it right, the effects
on the environment are reduced

by half or more.

If we do it wrong, the...
the possibility

of actually losing the
Chesapeake Bay

goes up dramatically.

>> SMITH:
We do have choices to make.

And from what I saw and heard
on my journey,

time is much more urgent
and the stakes are much higher

than I had once realized.

>> We are not going to make it
the way we are going now.

I mean, if you ask me for
today's grade: failure.

It doesn't mean we can't
redouble our effort, you know.

We can re-enroll, try again.

But yeah, it's a failure.

>> There is no question that the
condition of the Chesapeake Bay

is like the canary
in the coal mine.

It is a symbol.

It is an indicator of what
we are now learning to expect

in any body of water nationwide
and across the planet.

>> SMITH: The danger signs are
everywhere: dead zones;

dying young whales;
intersex in male fish;

the growing risk of serious
health problems for humans.

>> The '70s were a lot about,

"We're the good guys,
we're the environmentalists.

We're going to go
after the polluters."

And it's not really
about that anymore.

It's about the way we all live.

And unfortunately,
we are all polluters.

I am, you are, all of us are.

>> SMITH: Success is possible.

But the lesson driven home
to me again and again

is that the key is
public engagement.

>> If the public is not engaged,

in Puget Sound,
for example, we will fail.

We will fail.

I have no confidence whatsoever
we can get the job done

unless and until everybody
steps up, accepts responsibility

and becomes part
of the solution.

>> You can't expect the Clean
Water Act alone to do the job

for Puget Sound or Chesapeake
Bay or any other water body.

You have to piece together
clean water, clean air

and taking care of the land.

And at this point in our
history, we have to restore

what we've screwed up.

>> SMITH: Water pollution has
slipped off our radar screen

in the face of other,
seemingly more urgent crises.

But pollution is
a ticking time bomb.

It's a chronic cancer
that is slowly eating away

natural resources that are
vital to our very survival.

>> The estuaries and
the wetlands are worth

vastly more money
than we have acknowledged.

I mean, if we could calculate
and persuade the public

about how valuable
the wetlands are

in terms of the web of life,

we would be guarding them
like the family jewels

instead of using them
as our great sewage dump.

>> We have a window of time.

Whereas if we do not succeed
in taking action

in the next ten to 20 years
on a whole range of issues,

we are in fact putting our
planet on a trajectory

that it will be very, very hard
to undo.

And I say that because
the decisions we make

are going to have a profound
effect as to our planet's future

over the next hundred years.

>>
There's more to explore

where you can watch

explore what's safe

find out why it's taking so

what the quality

and what you can do to help.

>> You're talking about billions
of dollars of economic impact

with oysters, crabs, shad...

>>
Plus read the interviews

>> Absolutely no oxygen
in these dead zones.

>> These are the modern canary
in the mine.

>> Humans, rats, killer whales,
harbor seals,

it doesn't really matter.

>>
And join the discussion