A growing popularity of bicycle-friendly legislation helps fuel the growth of bicycle cooperatives. In recent years five Great Lakes states have passed statewide “Complete Streets” legislation to encourage bicycling.

By David Poulson
I’ve been involved in launching another social media community that is relevant to the environment. It’s not journalism – at least not in a traditional sense. But it certainly has implications for environmental reporting.
That’s one of the advantages of working here at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. It offers the freedom to experiment in ways that lead to, integrate with or enhance other information projects. I hope we’ll learn something from this venture that we can use to bolster the effectiveness …

The White House Asian Carp czar convened a meeting Monday at Michigan State University. Great Lakes states are discussing their efforts to stop the invasive fish. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports.
Indiana just finished building a 1,200 foot long, 8 foot high chain link fence across a wetland near Fort Wayne. Mark Reiter is head of The Fish and Wildlife Division of the Indiana DNR.
“The risk is during those months when the Asian carp want to spawn and they’ll feel that flow toward the St. Mary’s River and want to swim …

Native weeds are bad enough. Invasive weeds are worse, and invasive hybrid weeds are things of nightmares. As if single invasive species of plants weren’t powerful enough on their own, a recent article from Michigan Farm News makes us aware of the fact that we may need  to worry about invasive hybrids.

A bill before Michigan’s Legislature would begin to regulate wind farms in the state’s Great Lakes waters.
Whether lawmakers will approve it before a new governor and legislators take office is uncertain. And offshore wind power faces other hurdles.

Water quality advocates are fighting legislation that would let voter-approved bond money be used for brownfield cleanup rather than water infrastructure improvement.

The money is on hand because Michigan voters in 2002 approved $1 billion in loans to improve water quality.

Today is World Toilet Day. No, we didn’t make it up to have something new on the site this morning. In fact, it is an annual celebration of toilets, happening across the world every year. We have all prayed to the porcelain god once and make a daily trip to the throne, but most of us have done so without much thought or appreciation to the fixture. And that’s where World Toilet Day comes in.
The World Toilet Organization is the main driver of this day, which was developed to create …

Two funny-named species of freshwater mussels currently found in rivers of the Great Lake states were recently proposed for Endangered Species Act protection.

The rayed bean and snuffbox mussels were recently proposed to be listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Chemical contaminants, sedimentation, nonpoint source pollution and mining are threats to their habitat’s water quality, according to the service.

The two-year program develops ways to increase green jobs in six regions of the nation.

Metro Chicago and Michigan are targeted in the Great Lakes region.

Regions that were targeted had the greatest potential for green jobs and access to community colleges already working on job training and on greening their campuses.

Despite its reputation for gray skies, clouds and rough winters, Michigan may begin to rely more heavily on solar power to meet its electricity demands, some energy experts say.