(IL) Chicago Tribune – Chicago is the only major U.S. city that doesn’t disinfect its sewage, and the agency that treats its wastewater has a new reason for opposing the idea: It’s bad for the environment.

(ON) The Windsor Star - Great Lakes Fish Corporation, a Wheatley commercial fishing company, has been fined $10,250 for commercial fishing violations.

By Rachael Gleason and Thomas Morrisey
Jan. 22, 2010
One component of the green future that state officials want for Michigan is a partnership between Michigan State University and the Michigan Brewing Co. The Webberville craft brewery helps teach farmers, factory workers and entrepreneurs how to turn waste oils into useful fuel.

(ON) Winnepeg Free Press - Environmentalists are calling on the Ontario government to update its regulations in order to stop the pollution of the Great Lakes.

By Brian Laskowski, Shawntina Phillips and Jeff Gillies
Jan. 21, 2010
Editors note: This is part three of a three-day series on the environmental implications of GM’s bankruptcy.
Massena, Flint and Bedford are three towns that rose in the industrial might of the General Motors manufacturing era. Now Motors Liquidation Co., the company that owns GM’s worst assets, is preparing to close the door on the automaker’s legacy in these cities.
But before it leaves, Motors Liquidation or GM must account for decades of pollution at former factories and waste sites.

(OH) Cleveland Plain Dealer - The Ohio River and Lake Erie have been designated Marine Highway Corridors to promote the use of waterways to move people and freight and ease congestion on roads and rail lines.

(MI) Traverse City Record-Eagle - Michigan fisheries officials are seeing signs that a move to reduce the number of Chinook salmon released into Lake Michigan is improving the balance between the popular game fish and its prey.

By Kimberly Hirai and Jeff Gillies
Jan. 20, 2010
Editors note: This is part two of a three-day series on the environmental implications of GM’s bankruptcy.

The bankrupt shell of General Motors could dodge environmental cleanup costs for dozens of properties that the automaker polluted but doesn’t own.
Motors Liquidation Co. – the bundle of old GM debt and real estate that the automaker abandoned though bankruptcy – will clean up polluted property it inherited from GM with part of a $1.17 billion loan from the U.S. and Canadian governments.

(IL) Chicago Tribune – Joliet is pushing the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to more than double the concentration of cancer-causing radium it’s allowed to dump onto farmland in the south suburbs, expanding the potential for deadly radon gas in these increasingly urban communities.

(MI) Detroit Free Press - Metro Detroit’s outdated sewage systems regularly violate the law by dumping raw and partially treated human waste into rivers, streams and lakes that provide recreation and drinking water to more than 3 million people, a Free Press analysis of state records found.