Michigan Environmental Issues

Great Lakes' Environmental & Conservation News

They found them on a recent Monday morning -- thousands upon thousands lying dead in their beds, with no sign of what killed them or when.

It's only the first of many mysteries researchers hope to unearth from the bottom of the Flint, Shiawassee, Cass and Tittabawassee rivers as part of a massive underwater search for Michigan's missing mussels.

GLADWIN - A controversial sewer project in Gladwin County's Billings Township will mark a milestone today, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours of the plant.

Residents and politicians have been invited to the ceremony, scheduled for noon Saturday at the township's new wastewater treatment plant, constructed at the corner of McGrath and Pinconning roads.

Press Photo/Emily ZoladzTommy Allen plans to turn his downtown parking spot into a green space on Sept. 19 for "Park(ing) Day."

GRAND RAPIDS -- Can you turn a parking space into a park?

That's what organizers of "Green Grand Rapids" hope creative residents will do Sept. 19: Transform a downtown parking spot into a personalized pocket park.

"Park(ing) Day" is intended to make people to think about green space and the space we devote to cars, Green Grand Rapids Chairman Jack Hoffman said.

"It's going to be kind of like performance theater," he said. "There's a little bit of an edge to it, and that's what appeals to younger people."

The daylong event is part of the Green Grand Rapids campaign to rewrite the city parks and recreation master plan.

City Planning Director Suzanne Schulz said the event will set the stage for an Oct. 22 community forum that will focus on the choices communities make in determining which spaces are kept green and which are not.

LANSING - For Michigan residents in a weakening economy, the approaching cold weather may mean turning up the heat, but with rising electric bills.

Summer recess and national political conventions have delayed action on a crucial package of energy proposals in the Legislature.

The bills include provisions that would charge business customers the actual cost of electricity they use. The package would also preserve a market for electric company choices and encourage more efficient energy technology facilities to be built in Michigan.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- An independent review panel says a seven-year effort to document possible links between industrial pollution and health problems in the Great Lakes region has been hurt by substandard science.

The Institute of Medicine said Friday that drafts of a report still under development by the federal Centers for Disease Control were deeply flawed. The institute says there were problems with the data selected for use in the reports and the conclusions drawn.

The CDC asked the institute to examine its handling of the report after drawing accusations from some in Congress of a cover-up for delaying its release.

Drafts made public earlier this year suggest pollution in more than two dozen locations around the Great Lakes is causing health problems such as cancer and premature births.

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak says the Great Lakes Compact is on a fast track to approval, and folks can "kiss the Great Lakes goodbye" if that happens.

The compact, designed to protect the Great Lakes from large withdrawals, contains a loophole that would commercialize water, contends Stupak, D-Menominee.

AP File PhotoThe uproar over the first detected case of wasting disease in Michigan continues as the state Department of Natural Resources tries to determine whether other deer are infected.

ALGOMA TOWNSHIP -- Jim Schuiteman hand-raised and bottle-fed his babies, carefully tending to his 52-head deer farm for four years, all the while following state protocol to keep the animals disease free.

Less than two weeks after one of his 3-year-old does tested positive for chronic wasting disease -- and results for 51 others came back clear this week -- Schuiteman questions how the fatal neurological ailment hit the one animal.

"I'm hoping to find out, like everyone else," Schuiteman said Thursday. "It's still a very emotional situation. We did everything by the book."

The uproar over the first detected case of wasting disease in Michigan continues as the state Department of Natural Resources tries to determine whether other deer are infected and considers lifting a quarantine that effectively shut down the state's 559 deer-breeding operations.

A related state order -- over the objection of hunters -- also bans bait piles, trying to limit the possible spread of CWD through wild deer.

Press Photo/Jon M. BrouwerJustin Curtis, with Tender Lawn Care, cuts a lawn Friday in the Beckwith Hills neighborhood in northeast Grand Rapids.

GRAND RAPIDS -- If a single riding lawnmower gives off as much air pollution as 34 cars, as environmentalists say, the Beckwith Hills neighborhood on the Northeast Side was a hot spot Friday.

A two-man Tender Lawn Care crew mowed 15 yards in the neighborhood north of Leonard Street NE, buzzing grass on a Toro gas-powered riding lawnmower and behind a wide push mower.

In 2011, that will start changing -- when new Environmental Protection Agency standards announced Thursday take effect requiring emission controls on new gas-powered lawn mowers and other gas-powered equipment, including weed trimmers.

Press File PhotoFall is prime time for deer farm owners who sell breeding bucks and does.

GRAND RAPIDS -- Test results on more than 50 deer killed and taken off a northern Kent County deer breeding farm last week all have come back negative for chronic wasting disease, Michigan Department of Agriculture officials said Wednesday.

That finding means only one deer, a 3-year-old doe, was found to be infected with the fatal neurological disease. Officials are waiting for test results on four other deer taken off two deer farms, in Osceola and Montcalm counties. Both were breeding facilities that received deer from the Kent County farm, which has not been identified.

"It's a relief that we don't have 40 that are positive," said Steve Halstead, the state veterinarian. "That (result) would suggest that anything that moved out of that herd would be positive."

Deer breeders also are relieved. A negative test means the MDA can start to selectively lift the quarantine imposed on 559 deer farms last week. The quarantine was put in place to stop deer from moving between facilities, possibly spreading the disease.

FLINT, Michigan -- It's not easy being green, says Kermit the Frog -- but the Genesee Regional Chamber of Commerce has figured out a way to do it for their Hole-in-One Golf Challenge on the Flint River -- much to the relief of local environmentalists.

Flint River Watershed Coalition members were appalled when they first heard of the event planned for Thursday afternoon at the Genesee Regional Chamber of Commerce's Summer Wine Down, where people will hit golf balls toward a floating green in the Flint River next to the University Pavilion Rink.

Alexander Cohn | Times Photo

Consumers Energy officials say a haze of environmental regulations is hanging over the utility's plans for a new coal-fired power plant near Bay City.

The expansion to the company's Karn-Weadock complex in Hampton Township calls for construction of a $2.3 billion, 800-megawatt generation facility.

Consumers applied for an air quality permit from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in October 2007.

The review process was supposed to be complete this year, clearing a major hurdle for the project.

The DEQ now says the review will stretch into 2009, and a public comment period will be extended from the standard 30 days to 60 days due to interest in the project, which has drawn fire from state and national environmental groups.

Scott Mussell | Times PhotoJason Peterson cuts cedar siding in the foreground as Dean Bayas also works to restore a home at the Bay City State Recreation Area. The Michigan DNR is moving its offices from a strip mall on Euclid to the newly-renovated house.

A new district office for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources is taking shape in the woods of Bangor Township.

DNR employees and subcontractors are turning the former park supervisor's residence at the Bay City State Recreation Area into a new office for local DNR employees who now work out of an old strip mall on Euclid Avenue.

DNR says additional acres will contain vegetation, muck

A state commission decided last month to spend $370,000 to expand the Bay City State Recreation Area by 6.5 acres.

At the time, DNR officials said the purchase of land on the park's southeast end would create "a great beach addition to the park" that would be "open to the public."

The state is suing a Huron County dairy farmer for contributing to muck problems in Saginaw Bay.

The state Attorney General's office has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Department of Environmental Quality, asking the Huron County Circuit Court for preliminary and permanent injunctions against W. James Iseler, who operates a dairy along the banks of Willow Creek near Kinde, officials said Aug. 27.

Iseler has about 250 cows, which had unrestricted access to the creek, also called Willow River, during an inspection in 2006, said Colby Cottick, with the DEQ Water Bureau in Bay City.

DNR says additional acres will contain vegetation, muck

A state commission decided last month to spend $370,000 to expand the Bay City State Recreation Area by 6.5 acres.

At the time, DNR officials said the purchase of land on the park's southeast end would create "a great beach addition to the park" that would be "open to the public."