CURWOOD: It's Living On Earth, I'm Steve Curwood.

CURWOOD: Time now to dip into the mailbox. Several listeners liked our special program on the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, and especially the interview with William Ruckelshaus, the first EPA administrator. Ilil Carmi from Berkeley California commented, "How refreshing to hear a Republican speak sanely of government and environmental protection."

But he was disappointed that we failed to discuss fracking as a potential emerging threat to water quality.

Our report on the solar and human powered tricycle the Elf spun many comments on our website as well. Several listeners were interested in getting one – once the price comes down to about $1000.
And finally, our BirdNotes have been setting some listeners all a flutter. Our story about Laysan Albatrosses on Midway Atoll prompted this call.

LANE: Hi, I'm Captain Lane of the Georgia Army National Guard. and I listen to WGA in Athens, Georgia. In the show today, you all talked about the Albatrosses on Midway Island. But there was no mention of the trash that’s causing hundreds, perhaps thousands to die each year for attempting to digest 27 bottle caps and a cigarette lighter. It seems they mistakenly like to dine on the Pacific Ocean’s patch of plastic garbage, now said to be the size of Texas. You should probably mention such on a show called Living on Earth so we humans might come to understand how we are collectively killing the ability to Live on Earth. Maybe, just maybe, enough folks will wake up and smell the coffee before Mother Nature and the Earth disown us all. Keep the calls and emails coming to comments@loe dot org. Once again, comments@loe.org. And you can call our listener line anytime at 800-218-9988. That's 800-218-9988. And you can comment on our Facebook page, it’s PRI’s Living on Earth.