(MI) The Detroit News – The Senate easily passed legislation tonight containing $400 million for Great Lakes restoration by deterring invasive species, cleaning up highly polluted sites and expanding wetlands.

(MI) WWJ -  A University of Michigan-led research team is creating a comprehensive analysis and mapping of threats to the Great Lakes that will guide decision-making in the United States and Canada for years to come.

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Bloomington city officials and residents who live around Lower Penn Lake are again tussling over how to improve the water quality and appearance of the 32-acre lake.

(MI) Flint Journal – Homeowners in the area around Hoisington and Bennett lakes have discovered dozens of dead white-tailed deer in their yards and waterways over the past few weeks.

(NY) The New York Times – It’s important to understand that claims of immense economic damage from climate legislation are as bogus, in their own way, as climate-change denial. Saving the planet won’t come free (although the early stages of conservation actually might). But it won’t cost all that much either.

(MI) Traverse City Record Eagle -  It’s not Traverse City’s job to enact smoking bans in order to encourage healthy lifestyles or make sure adults don’t set a bad example for impressionable teens. But it is the city’s job to enact smoking bans to ensure public safety and health on public property.

(ON) The Kingston Whig – The federal government would love to see the decommissioned HMCS Terra Nova sold to a local diving group that wants to turn it into a diving attraction. But plans to sink the 112-metre anti-submarine destroyer escort near Gananoque are facing an opponent more formidable than anything the ship faced on active service: provincial regulations.

(OH) Akron Beacon Journal – If the Gorge dam on the Cuyahoga River is to be demolished, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to know first what’s sitting at the bottom of the lake behind it.

(IN) The Post-Tribune – Stories of mangled trees, inadequate notice and little communication from NIPSCO peppered testimony on tree-trimming practices at a public field hearing on Wednesday night at Merrillville High School.

By Haley Walker
Walkerh4@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 25, 2009
Big Blue, Gus, Chomsky, George and Leonidasto buried their snouts in leafy greens, rolled in the mud, and grunted happily when they arrived recently at Michigan State University’s student organic farm.
They had traveled from their birthplace at MSU’s old swine farm to a garden at the university’s organic farm.
It was only a physical distance of a few miles, but light years in the way the 6-month-old pigs were raised. These animals are part of a university experiment that will look not only at their …