By David Poulson
Echo readers may be interested in the just-launched Michigan River News.
We are.
Like Echo, Michigan River News defines its news community by natural features rather than political boundaries.
It’s a great experiment in environmental journalism.
The two founders are former Echo writers and graduates of the masters program here at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.
Andrew McGlashen, who graduated in 2009, wrote an Echo column that remains one of our most commented stories.  Jeff  Brooks Gillies, who graduated this past spring, experimented with unusual reporting techniques like animating Lake …

A conservation group is trying to unload Michigan’s Rifle River of excess pollutants with help of a $382,000 grant from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

The river meets most state environmental and recreational standards but is threatened by surplus nutrients and sediment.

Life-threatening heat waves, record snowfalls and lake level drops are just a few climate change catastrophes in store for the Great Lakes region, according to an interactive map recently launched by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Climate Hot Map features current climate change impacts to locations across the globe, including five Great Lakes hot spots.
Click on “see detail page” at the bottom of each icon box for more information on impacts to that location.
Scientists expect more intense lake-effect snowfall in the Midwest and more precipitation during the winter and spring …

Great Lakes states once again dominated the bottom of a beach health and safety list released by the Natural Resources Defense Council before July 4 weekend.
But some Great Lakes beach and health experts say the council’s report inaccurately reflects monitoring methods and unfairly interprets state data.

Third Coast beaches get the spotlight for first time.