Echo

Genesee County will not appeal ruling against managed deer hunt

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(MI) Flint Journal – The Genesee County Parks Commission will not appeal a judge’s ruling against a controlled deer hunt to protect the ecosystem at For-Mar Nature Preserve & Arboretum. It’s probably not in our best interest to appeal. We’re budgeted down to the dollar at this point and every dollar we spend on something like this is a dollar we can’t spend on mowing or picking up trash or public safety,” said parks Director Amy McMillan in agreeing with the commission’s legal counsel not to appeal. “There’s just not an infinite well from which we draw to do our work for the entire park system.” More

Echo

Legislature OKs Michigan Tech lake research center

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – The state Legislature has given Michigan Technological University a go-ahead for its planned $25.3 million Great Lakes Research Center. The Legislature’s Joint Capital Outlay Committee decided Thursday to let the school seek construction bids. The center is planned for a waterfront site near Michigan Tech’s campus in Houghton. The state is to pay 74 percent of the cost and the university 26 percent. More

Echo

Even the government answers to these citizens who protect the Wisconsin River’s scenery

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By Alice Rossignol
Nov. 13, 2009

There are few places where a government agency lines up for a permit just like everybody else. One of them is at the Lower Wisconsin Riverway Board. Founded in 1989, the board is made up of Wisconsin citizens who enforce a series of aesthetic regulations along 92 miles of the Wisconsin River and nearly 80,000 acres of land. “The uniqueness to having a citizen board is that it represents the people who live in the area.

Water

Sewage work should be the No. 1 priority for the Great Lakes

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(MI) Bay City Times – To think we are receiving $475 million to help repair our precious Great Lakes, but not being able to use the money to clean up the sewage that is dumped into those same Great Lakes every time we get a heavy rain is ridiculous.I cannot believe in good conscience why this problem isn’t a No. 1 priority. I don’t care about the cost! More

Echo

Riding the wave

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – A focused effort is required if the Milwaukee region is to become a hub of water research and industry. Water offers the region terrific economic development potential, but that effort cannot be diluted. And development of a strong water industry also requires the concentration that only a full-time staff can bring. As valuable as the work of volunteers has been, those volunteers have day jobs and other professional concerns. The effort needs someone whose day job it is to help make Milwaukee a center of water research and development.

Echo

One-man fight against pipeline proposal fades to background

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(MI) Flint Journal – The man fighting the plan to run a $600 water pipe from Lake Huron to Genesee County stands alone. Cheboygan County Administrator Michael Overton made that clear in a letter last month to Genesee County officials. Cheboygan County Drain Commissioner Dennis Lennox’s campaign against the water pipe to serve Genesee, Lapeer and Sanilac counties is a one-man band. And he’s dead wrong. More

Echo

Getting the measure of the green economy: Enviro jobs are hard to count

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By Brian Laskowski and Agnieszka Spieszny

Detroit Workers for Environmental Justice runs a green-jobs training program for low-income or unemployed Detroiters, some of whom formerly worked for the auto industry. Kinnus Paul said his organization boasts a 100 percent job placement mostly in hands-on clean-up work. “You have to clean up before you green up” is the agency’s motto, the job developer jokes. Jobs include hazardous waste clean up, lead and asbestos abatement, weatherization installation. But while Paul knows a green job when he sees one, government agencies tracking an activity they hope fuels the economy struggle with the definition.

Echo

Professors find clue to dead zone in lake

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(OH) Toledo Blade – For decades if not centuries, a portion of Lake Erie’s central basin has been so depleted of oxygen that it has not supported life. Two Bowling Green State University researchers believe they have uncovered cold-weather diatoms, or microscopic pieces, of algae that contribute to the lake’s infamous dead zone.  
The research that Michael McKay and George Bullerjahn have done into Aulacoseira islandica (pronounced All-LE-sa-SY-ruh Eye-LAND-icka) is not likely to solve the dead zone’s mystery. More

Echo

Scripps proposes solid waste disposal fee

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(MI) Traverse City Record-Eagle – Some lawmakers are seeking an increase in solid waste disposal fees to help reduce landfills and incineration. A proposal by Rep. Daniel Scripps, D-Leland, would establish a $7.50 per ton state tipping fee on solid waste dumped at landfills and municipal incinerators. A new surcharge initially would generate about $145 million annually. The amount could decrease over time if the program succeeds in reducing the volume of waste. More

Echo

Great Lakes a step closer to recovery

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(WI) Sheboygan Press – The Great Lakes got a huge shot in the arm last week when President Obama signed the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. This measure commits $475 million to a restoration and recovery program for the largest source of freshwater in the world. It also makes the federal government and the eight states that border Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario partners in the effort. More