Great Lakes Echo (http://greatlakesecho.org/page/2/?s=sarah+coefield)
By Yang Zhang and Rachael Gleason
Dec. 18, 2009
Burning coal is dirty business. The fuel is laden with heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic and chemicals that cause acid rain. When power plants burn coal, they release the contaminants into the air. Over the past couple of decades, increasingly stringent air pollution standards have forced power plants to clean up their dirty air.
By Sarah Coefield
Dec. 17, 2009
Gibson Lake, built by one of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants to store wastewater, has attracted birds and fishermen to its shores for years. But after years of wastewater discharge, the Indiana lake contains high levels of selenium that threaten hundreds of species of birds, including the endangered least tern, and render fish unsafe to eat. Selenium is an essential nutrient, but in wildlife and people excess amounts can be dangerous. As with mercury, selenium monitoring and regulations are spotty across the Great Lakes region.
By Sarah Coefield
Dec. 15, 2009
Power plants across the nation dump water laced with metals and other contaminants into streams and lakes, threatening drinking water supplies and wildlife. Some states let plants emit metals at hundreds of times the level that federal officials say is safe. Others don’t even require monitoring for most of them. But now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing a new regulation that would require more than 600 coal-fired power plants to clean up–perhaps even eliminate–the waste they put into lakes, rivers and other waterways. And electricity users will foot the bill.
By Sarah Coefield
Nov. 19, 2009
The best medicine for diseased deer is the business end of a rifle, according to wildlife experts managing the species. And it’s inoculation time. With hunting season in full swing, conservation officials across the Great Lakes region are relying on hunters to thin the massive herd and slow the spread of disease. At more than 7 million strong, the region’s white tail deer herd is largely healthy, but there are small pockets of disease.
By Sarah Coefield
Nov. 2, 2009
Great Lakes particle polluters are cleaning up their acts. The number of areas violating one particulate pollution standard has fallen from 36 to 12 in the past year, according to a recent report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Large cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York City still report problems. But Chicago is notably absent from the list of particulate polluters. While their compositions vary, the particles in question are all about the same size: small. In this case, 2.5 micrometers, or about 100 times thinner than a human hair.
By Sarah Coefield
Oct. 20, 2009
A small group in Bryan, Ohio spent six years securing federal protection for an aquifer that provides water to 385,000 people in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to designate the Michindoh aquifer as the sole source of drinking water for 1,600 square miles. The designation will include all or part of nine counties in the three states that supply its name. The protection is important for communities with few drinking water options. And for Bryan, the Michindoh aquifer is the only option.
By Sarah Coefield
Oct. 15, 2009
The Great Lakes teem with fish, but anglers looking to them for their next meal should be cautious. The fish contain an array of contaminants, including some known to threaten human health. Methyl mercury inhibits brain development. PCBs can suppress the immune system and thyroid development and may cause cancer. The contaminants have lead to consumption advisories on many popular fish species, such as walleye, lake trout and salmon.
By Sarah Coefield
Coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 23, 2009
Countless deer descend on crops in the Great Lakes region, leaving in their wake torn corn silks, leafless soybeans, devastated orchards and millions of dollars in damage. It’s a drop in the bucket for the agriculturally rich region but nonetheless painful for individual farmers. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s a minor amount, but it can be your entire crop,” said Paul Zimmerman, the public affairs executive director for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. While damage may be little noticed on large farms, it can be devastating for small operations where deer can quickly wipe out a field of young soybeans. “Welcome to raising crops in Mother Nature,” Zimmerman said.
By Sarah Coefield
coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 15, 2009
A run on guns and ammo in the wake of President Barack Obama’s election last year may be a boon to Great Lakes wildlife. A federal tax on the manufacture and import of firearms, ammunition, bows and arrows is distributed to states for wildlife conservation and hunter education programs.
And those tax collections are climbing fast. Background checks for gun purchases hit record levels in November and corresponded with significant gun and ammunition sales. Gun enthusiasts say they’re stocking up because they fear interference in gun rights by the Obama administration.
By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 26, 2009
Editor’s note: This story is part of an occasional series on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
With more than 100 projects vying for a piece of the $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, taxpayers may wonder: Are they worth it? At least one agency is poised to find out if restoration projects will lower pollutants in people. Eighteen of the proposals in the initiative to clean or protect the Great Lakes address contaminants. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry intends to monitor some of those projects by checking for contaminants in Great Lakes residents’ blood and urine. The goal is to analyze them before cleanup and then several years later, said Steve Dearwent, the chief of health investigations in the agency’s division of health studies.