By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 26, 2009
Editor’s note: This story is part of an occasional series on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
With more than 100 projects vying for a piece of the $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, taxpayers may wonder:  Are they worth it?
At least one agency is poised to find out if restoration projects will lower pollutants in people.
Eighteen of the proposals in the initiative to clean or protect the Great Lakes address contaminants.  The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry intends to monitor …

(MI) The Alpena News – Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council members were among the first to get a look at the sanctuary’s final management plan during its official release on Tuesday.

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By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 21, 2009
A marshmallow blimp and a yellow submarine are gearing up to explore the Great Lakes from above and below.
The SkySentry Aerostat — an unmanned blimp designed for military use — wouldn’t be out of place advertising a used car clearance sale, Michael Scott writes in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Instead, officials are testing the big white blimp’s ability to collect imagery of Lake Erie algae blooms that turn the lake’s shallow western waters green and suffocate fish. Check the Plain Dealer’s story for …

Editors note: This story is part of an occasional series of Echo reports on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 20, 2009
Preventing shipborne organisms from damaging the Great Lakes ecosystem is one target of the Obama Administration’s $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
Ships carry ballast water to make them more stable as their cargo is offloaded. When they take on more cargo, they flush the ballast back into the lake or ocean.  That water can carry from foreign ports plants and animals that compete with native …

Find out your home’s Walk Score:

By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
August 19, 2009
Great Lakes Echo
Despite rising gas prices and growing concern over greenhouse gases, many Great Lakes residents find it difficult to leave their cars at home.
The Web site www.walkscore.com ranked the walkability of 40 large cities across the United States. Of the five Great Lakes cities that were examined, only Chicago made the top ten.
So what makes a city walkable?
Dan Burden says a walkable community is “built around the human foot.”  He founded Walkable Communities Inc. and has worked …

By Jeff Gillies
JeffGillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 18, 2009
Four Great Lakes states recorded their coolest July this summer in 115 years of record keeping. Two more recorded their second coolest July.
What ever happened to global warming?
“Nothing,” said Jeff Andresen, Michigan’s state climatologist.
“The long term patterns are still pretty much in the same direction as they’ve been,” he said. “And that’s a warmer region and world.”
While Great Lakes cities and states set records for cool July temperatures, New Mexico had its third warmest July. Arizona and Washington each had their ninth warmest July.

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By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 14, 2009
Great Lakes officials are anxious for the Obama Administration to appoint the region’s top Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
“The appointment is always important, but for (the Great Lakes states), right now it’s absolutely critical,” said Andy Buchsbaum, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes region. “For the first time in history, we could get millions and millions of dollars from Congress, and the administrator is important to making sure the money is spent well.”
The Chicago-based Region 5 administrator is responsible for the …

By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 13, 2009
Some Great Lakes brownfields will turn green if Congress passes a $475 million restoration package.
Literally.
The U.S. Forest Service seeks $2 million of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to transform  unusable industrial lots into parks and trailways – and clean up some contaminants in the process.
While the forest service has  long restored natural vegetation and has an urban forestry division, this will be its first foray into phytoremediation, said Steven Davis, a watershed specialist with the forest service’s Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry …