Echo

Greenville joins with United Solar Ovonic LLC on a solar powered future

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(MI) Grand Rapids Press – The quest for cheaper, cleaner energy has city and school officials partnering with United Solar Ovonic LLC on a $36 million project to convert their facilities to solar power. “The rationale goes well beyond cutting utility costs. It’s about jump-starting a local and state economy in an emerging industry,” Greenville Public Schools Superintendent Pete Haines said. “It’s more about putting people to work producing and installing than actually generating revenues. More importantly, for the long run, it’s about creating a full-spectrum training site — everything from manufacturing of the product to installing and monitoring.”

Echo

In the hot seat: Solar-powered bathroom going up along Bay County Railtrail

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(MI) Bay City Times – Anyone who’s ever stepped into a portable toilet knows what it’s like inside on a hot day. Local leaders are turning to solar power to freshen things up in Bay County’s Bangor Township. A 10-by-12 foot block building is being constructed along the Railtrail system along Patterson Avenue, in front of the Bay County Wastewater Treatment Plant.  More

Recreation

South Haven to swimmers: Respect Lake Michigan

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(MI) Kalamazoo Gazette – You can’t be too safe swimming in Lake Michigan. That’s the message South Haven officials are sending to residents and visitors of this popular resort town. “The take-home message is to get people to respect Lake Michigan,” said Mayor Pro Tem Scott Smith, who is urging area schools to include an educational video about rip currents in their yearly curriculum. More

Land

Detroit to host Greening the Heartland conference

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(MI) Booth Newspapers – Charles Poat is an architect and senior project manager with the Mannik & Smith Group in Canton. He’s also chairperson of the Detroit Regional Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. “It’s really easy to part of an association that’s associated with green and the environment,” says Poat. “Our membership has quadrupled in the last year.” The Detroit chapter is hosting the Greening the Heartland Conference in Detroit May 31 through June 2.

Echo

Michigan, Illinois, New York consider school alternative energy incentives

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By Theresa Gasinski, gasinsk1@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 21, 2009

The Michigan Legislature may soon create a fund to loan schools money to build windmills, solar panels or other sources of alternative energy. Elsewhere in the Great Lakes region, lawmakers in Illinois and New York have introduced similar legislation. Some ideas within the Michigan bills to integrate wind energy into schools were written by Cory Connolly, an international relations junior at Michigan State University. Connolly is senior fellow for energy and the environment at the MSU Roosevelt Institution, a public policy research group that is part of a larger nonprofit with student chapters nationwide. State Rep. Paul Opsommer, R-Dewitt, used parts of Connolly’s policy memo in a bill introduced in the House, which was duplicated and sent to the Senate.

Echo

Conflicting report on dredging remains secret

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – The public will have a chance to comment Wednesday night on a controversial study that clears the Army Corps of Engineers of allegations that a botched dredging job in the 1960s permanently lowered Lakes Michigan and Huron. But what people attending the hearing in Evanston, Ill., won’t get to see is a second report that contradicts the new study’s findings. The reason: That report – essentially a critique requested and paid for by the producers of the new study – is still being reviewed, according to study spokesman John Nevin. More

Waste

Cloth bags condemned as plastic strikes back

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(ON) The Toronto Star – The plastics industry is warning consumers that reusable fabric grocery bags can create a health risk because they can become contaminated with fungus and bacteria if not properly washed. As the green movement against disposable plastics gains momentum, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association warns that it had 24 reusable bags tested at two laboratories and in many of them found mould, yeast and bacteria, including intestinal fecal bacteria. More

Waste

Detroit incinerator’s burning issues

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(MI) The Detroit News – If you eat, sleep or waste in Detroit, or Royal Oak or a dozen other local municipalities, chances are good your garbage will be shipped to the heart of this city where it will be incinerated and converted into steam, electricity and exhaust fumes that will be recycled into some citizen’s lungs. If you take a trip to the incinerator — or if you prefer the official Orwellian name, the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Facility — you are in for a view of the decadent, profligate habits of the American citizen and the protracted problem of trying to dispose of his detritus. More

Echo

Belle Isle water prompts concern

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(MI) The Detroit News – There isn’t much that’s tropical about Krystale Houston’s West Detroit neighborhood so, for her, the beach at Belle Isle Park is a real escape. In the summers, she and her friends try to get there every other day or so for swimming and sunning. But depending on which public beach you’re talking about in Metro Detroit, that water gets varying levels of attention from health officials charged with ensuring it’s safe to swim in. And while surrounding governments have compiled years of data on their beaches — telling them which times are most likely to produce E.coli contamination — Detroit’s only public beach at Belle Isle has never been monitored regularly. More