By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
July 13, 2009
Associated Press reporter Elizabeth Dunbar recently wrote this story that checks in with researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Superior who are testing systems to kill aquatic organisms hiding in the ballast water inside of ships. They’re using a system of tanks and pumps to replicate the innards of a ship navigating freshwater — the only such facility the world.
Treatment systems have to eliminate foreign organisms that wreak ecological havoc on the Great Lakes while leaving the water clean enough to return to …

By Chris Parks
parksch3@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
July 10, 2009
The wild pigs already troubling southern states are slowly becoming an issue in the Great Lakes region.
In recent years these feral swine have been concentrated in California, Texas and southeastern states.
But in Michigan alone there were 200 sightings of these animals in more than 60 counties as of late 2008.
“Unfortunately, most statewide agencies don’t have

(NY) The New York Times – Rapid transit systems may hold a key to combating climate change. Emissions from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles in the booming cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America account for a rapidly growing component of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
July 9, 2009
Wind turbines cut air pollution, but they may mean respiratory trouble for bats flying nearby.
“Basically, their lungs explode,” said Barb Barton, biologist with the Michigan Natural Features Inventory.
Though wind turbines can kill bats by smacking them out of the sky, the huge spinning blades more often take out bats without touching them.
Turbine blades spinning at up to 200 mph leave in their wake a vortex of

By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
July 8, 2009
Several Great Lakes governors own hybrid vehicles, but that’s not enough to place them among the country’s greenest state chief executives, according to one recent study.
None of the region’s governors made it into the top ten in the study by Greenopia, an environmental consumer interest Web site and blog.
Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, Minnesota and Pennsylvania’s governors did squeeze into the top 25. The report evaluated the governors’ policies and stances on climate change, energy conservation and tax incentives to encourage green consumers, said …

(WI) Wisconsin State Journal – Wisconsin’s timber wolves went back on the federal endangered species list in late June for the third time in 27 months.

(NY) The New York Times -  In 1985, 47 elk were released in the southern section of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota.

By Thomas Morrisey, tmorrisey@gmail.com,
and Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu,
Great Lakes Echo
July 7, 2009
A new multimillion-dollar research project at Michigan State University will transform manure from a bothersome waste to a green energy powerhouse.
The East Lansing, Mich. university’s Anaerobic Digestion Research and Education Center, will focus on developing small digesters that use bacteria to break down manure into biogas. It is part of a group of similar efforts across the Great Lakes region.
Biogas is made up of mostly methane, carbon dioxide and effluent sludge, a nitrogen-rich substance that can be used as fertilizer.
The biogas, …

By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
July 6, 2009
Wonder what the rocky cliffs of Lake Superior or the dusty dunes of Lake Michigan looked like 100 years ago?
You can find out using the American Environmental Photographs collection from the University of Chicago Library. The collection holds around 4,500 photographs taken from 1891 to 1936, and includes hundreds from around the Great Lakes.
The collection is part the work of Henry Chandler Cowles, a botanist, conservationist and pioneer in the field of

(NY) The New York Times – When Congress passed a new energy law two years ago, obituaries were written for the incandescent light bulb.