By Haley Walker
Nov. 16, 2009
(Editors note: Make your case for a Great Lakes song in the comments and we’ll update this map.)
Becoming a successful musician didn’t require Timothy Monger to move to Los Angeles or New York.
Brighton, a southeastern Michigan city of 6,000, is where he was first inspired. It is where he grew up and the place he stayed near. The dream of musical fame often pursued on the East and West coasts was not as great an influence as the Great Lakes – the Third Coast.
Michigan’s Keeweenaw …

By Adam DeLay
Nov. 15, 2009

LANSING, Mich. – Southeast Michigan officials are pushing for a commuter rail connecting Ann Arbor and Detroit, as well as a light rail running between downtown Detroit and the New Center area along Woodward Avenue.

(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Starting in July, consumers will find automatic-dishwasher detergents in stores with lower levels of phosphorus – and likely less cleaning power – as detergent makers respond to state bans on the substance.

(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.

(IL) Chicago Tribune – The state Legislature has given Michigan Technological University a go-ahead for its planned $25.3 million Great Lakes Research Center.

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. It’s one of the most unique systems in the country,” said Don …

(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.

(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.

(MI) Flint Journal - The man fighting the plan to run a $600 water pipe from Lake Huron to Genesee County stands alone.

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 …