Polluting Now to Save Trees in the Future

Scientists wearing protective face masks roamed a private, remote 80-acre grove, checking the levels of greenhouse gases being sprayed onto the trees.

For the last eight years, researcher David F. Karnosky and dozens of scientists have trucked billions of pounds of ozone and other gases to these woods, where aspen and pine trees blanket the surrounding hills.

They have sprayed thousands of trees with the gases to simulate what pollution is expected to be 50 years from now. Their goal is to determine how Wisconsin forests will fare with increased levels of pollution.

The $8-million project -- Aspen FACE -- is the world’s largest outdoor climate-change experiment.

Started in 1997 on U.S. Forest Service land about 150 miles northwest of Green Bay, it is one of four such outdoor projects that the Department of Energy is funding. The pollution that scientists are recreating is one and a half times that found in northern Wisconsin, “or about the same levels on a clear day in Los Angeles,” Karnosky said.

“Ozone, in large quantities and over long periods of time, is dangerous. It does to the lungs what it does to leaves: breaks down cell walls,” said Karnosky, a professor of forest genetics at Michigan Technological University. “Outside the testing site, though, it’s fine. Why would we endanger the forests that we’re ultimately trying to protect?”

Some environmentalists and local residents are protesting the project -- not because of the research, but because of where it is taking place.

They are concerned that the testing is contaminating the air of neighboring farms and retirement homes, and they want the government to shut down the project or move it indoors.

Protesters have put up signs, each about the size of a garage door. One sits across from the lab’s entrance and warns, “Danger: Air Pollution Test Site.” Another down the road shows the outline of a child collapsing amid a cloud of black smoke.

Some residents have called the academics “tree killers” and “air destroyers.”

“The scientists say they are careful with the gases, that they control how much they use, that there are all these security measures and sensors in place to make sure the gases stay where they’re supposed to,” said John Herman, 55, a farmer whose property butts up to the project site. “But how can they control where the wind blows, and how that wind moves the gases?”

The project site is in a part of Oneida County called Harshaw, which is little more than a ZIP code for the scientists’ mail. At one time, the site was a potato farm edged with tall, thick pine and poplar trees that blocked out the sun. The land was cleared, and scientists built 12 giant rings made of white PVC pipe.

The individual rings are about 100 feet wide, about one-third the size of a football field. More pipes -- 30 feet high -- fence in each ring’s 500 trees.

Scientists planted a mix of trees -- aspen, paper birch and sugar maple trees -- that thrived locally. As the saplings grew, scientists cut vents into the pipes; the gases would travel through the pipes and shoot through the holes and onto the trees.

Today, the trees have grown so tall that branches sway over the tops of the pipe fence. The leaves rustle and flutter, sounding like waves crashing onto a shore.

At the base of each ring is a small shed, where computerized monitors track the wind speed and the soil temperature and regulate how much natural air, carbon dioxide and ozone is sprayed onto the trees.

Research occurs when the trees have leaves, which scientists harvest and grind up to extract genetic information.

Every year, from spring through fall, Karnosky and a team of about 70 scientists, on a rotating basis, come to the area to conduct research. They check chemical levels in the soil, gather leaves to see how the trees are absorbing pollution, and monitor how hearty or withered the trees look.

The federal government hopes the research will show how energy production, such as utility companies burning fossil fuels, hurts the environment.

But the project is also trying to figure out ways to protect one of the state’s dominant industries.

Wisconsin is the nation’s leading producer of paper products, and forestry contributes $19 billion annually to the state economy. One of every 12 manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin is in the wood products industry.

Most of the jobs rely on a steady supply of healthy aspen trees. Quick to grow and easy to pulp, aspens make up more than half of the state’s forests.

They’re also a huge draw for tourists, who flock to northern Wisconsin annually to see aspen leaves turn from emerald green to shades of burnt orange and molten gold.

For Karnosky, who grew up in the area and often hiked and hunted game, the research is driven by a desire to save his childhood home. “Why can’t people understand I’m trying to protect it?” he asked.

So far, the research -- as well as findings from other project sites -- has revealed some unexpected and possibly disheartening results.

Some trees exposed to higher rates of carbon dioxide grew more slowly than scientists had expected and didn’t absorb as many industrial pollutants. Researchers found that plants and soil were less able to clean the air when ozone levels were high. They discovered that aspens didn’t adapt as well to the increased pollution as some other trees.

Until recently, the test site was hidden behind miles of fences, and residents knew little about the experiments conducted there. Curiosity abounded, as did rumors.

Scientists, most of whom stay in hotels about 30 minutes away in Rhinelander (population about 7,700), have been asked if the trees hide secret missile sites. Other neighbors were convinced the scientists were CIA agents training in bioterrorism tactics.

“When people don’t know what’s going on, they start guessing,” said Denny Kimps, 61, a farmer in Rhinelander for more than 20 years.

In an effort to set things straight and improve relations with residents, scientists recently opened the site to the public for the first time. Under a sapphire blue sky and bundled in light coats to ward off a cool breeze, more than 100 people gathered on the living laboratory’s front lawn.

There were farmers concerned about ozone gases drifting onto their land. Retirees came to complain about noise, saying they could hear the grinding sound of the vents spewing out the gas. Others, such as Nancy Maher, were simply curious.

“How can you not want to know what’s happening here?” said Maher, 55, a homemaker. “We don’t want to breathe that stuff. We’re concerned about the lakes and the air.”

Repeatedly, researchers told skeptical residents that the air was safe and that scientists routinely checked to make sure ozone and other gases weren’t leaving the site.

They warned that the site’s environment was delicate and could unwittingly be damaged if people were left to roam on their own. They acknowledged that an attack at a nearby facility had made them more cautious.

In 2000, a group of environmental activists, who said they were protesting bioengineering, cut down 500 trees and poured acid on staff vehicles at a research station in Rhinelander.

The U.S. Forestry Sciences Laboratory operated that project, which was unrelated to Aspen FACE. Its purpose was to develop cures for a cancer-like disease that plagued poplar trees. The facility had been open to the public; people wandered around and treated it like a park, forestry officials said.

They said the attack delayed the research by at least a decade, the length of time it would take to regrow the trees.

“It was frightening,” said Mark E. Kubiske, a plant physiologist working on the Aspen FACE project. “We’ve been lucky that, so far, the only thing hurting our trees has been rabbits and porcupines.”