Echo

With CAFOs, farms have many animals — even more waste

By |

(MI) The Detroit News – Most of them, if not all, smell and smell bad. Some pollute Michigan’s air and water and increase human health risks. One of their main byproducts is, to put it politely, excrement — and lots of it. And for better or worse, they might be a big part of Michigan’s farming future. The practice of crowding more livestock onto fewer acres, known as concentrated animal feeding operations, has helped many Michigan farms survive and even thrive in an era when many midsize farms are being squeezed out of business.

Nearshore

City looks to Racine, Wis., for help on reducing E. coli

By |

(IN) The News Dispatch – How can we reduce the amount of E. coli bacteria along the beach in Washington Park? That’s a question we asked Dr. Julie Kinzelman, research scientist and laboratory director for the city of Racine, Wis. While snowflakes were flying during a winter storm in February, Kinzelman came to Michigan City to share her expertise with several different local groups desiring to reduce the levels of E. coli in our local beaches. More

Nearshore

To weed or not to weed is the question around West Michigan lakes

By |

(MI) Grand Rapids Press – When Ron Myszak’s four fishing buddies came to his home on Myers Lake for the start of bass season Saturday, he hoped for pristine boating and angling conditions. “I like to fish, so I like to see a few weeds,” said Myszak, 71, who has lived on the Courtland Township lake for more than four decades. “Yet they do a good job of keeping it clean after they treat the lake.” Weed-control crews were on Myszak’s lake last week for the first of several herbicide treatments, a process that hundreds of local lakes and ponds will undergo this spring as boaters, swimmers and fishing enthusiasts return to the water. More

Echo

Volunteers documenting ephemeral ponds in eastern Wisconsin

By |

(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Jody Barbeau wades into a shallow pond in woods less than a mile from shoppers at Mayfair Mall and commuters on congested U.S. Highway 45 – to glimpse a bustling community of other creatures. Two mallard ducks cautiously paddle away from Barbeau, but there is no indication of aquatic life until he lifts a net out of the water. Reddish dots on the fabric are water mites, he said. More

Waste

Cloth bags condemned as plastic strikes back

By |

(ON) The Toronto Star – The plastics industry is warning consumers that reusable fabric grocery bags can create a health risk because they can become contaminated with fungus and bacteria if not properly washed. As the green movement against disposable plastics gains momentum, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association warns that it had 24 reusable bags tested at two laboratories and in many of them found mould, yeast and bacteria, including intestinal fecal bacteria. More

Echo

Volunteers count crane flies in Stoney Creek

By |

(MI) Detroit Free Press – Adam Rhein trudged through a murky branch of Stoney Creek in Washington Township in chest-high rubber waders on Tuesday and lowered a long net into the gentle water. Rhein and more than a dozen other juniors from Romeo High School joined the council’s effort to collaborate with communities, schools and businesses in order to test for pollution in the river and more than 1,000 miles of creeks. The rivers and streams meander through Oakland and Macomb counties then spill into Lake St. Clair, a major source of drinking water and recreation. More

Echo

Great Lakes groups urge passage of Obama cleanup plan; cite jobs, environment benefits

By |

By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 14, 2009

Regional environmental and economic groups on Thursday urged Congress to quickly approve President Barack Obama’s proposed allocation of $475 million to restore and protect the Great Lakes. “This initiative, from our perspective, is the exact priorities the Great Lakes need, and the right amount,” said Andy Buchsbaum, co-chair of Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. The proposal allocates the most money – $146 million – to cleaning toxic substances from contaminated sediments. Other funding would go to keeping out and removing invasive species, preventing pollution, improving near-shore health and protecting habitat and wildlife. The president has not identified specific geographic regions that would receive the funding.

Echo

Toxaphene – A stubborn pollutant persists

By |

Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
April 23, 2009

The largest, deepest and coldest Great Lake holds another distinction, – it has the highest levels of toxaphene found in the region and possibly anywhere in the world. Since federal bans on persistent pollutants in the 1970s and 80s, most chemical concentrations have declined in the Great Lakes. Some Great Lakes toxicologists say the same is true of toxaphene. But toxaphene in Lake Superior has increased by 25 percent since its ban in 1990, according to Mel Visser, a former environmental health safety officer and author of Cold, Clear and Deadly, a book that details the legacy of Great Lakes contaminants. The insecticide has been shown to damage the immune system, nervous system, lungs and cause cancer.

Echo

Great Lakes or great sink? Pollutants produced abroad and still circulating at home threaten water quality

By |

By Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo 4/22/09
Indian cement plants, Russian incinerators and Chinese farms send large amounts of persistent pollutants to the Great Lakes. The continued expulsion of these toxins pose serious environmental and health problems for all countries, including those who have long since banned these chemicals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Climate change may further complicate the issue. As countries like China develop, they are not only becoming the largest emitters of carbon dioxide but of persistent organic pollutants or POPs, according to the International POPs Elimination Network. These chemicals drift into the atmosphere or fall to the surface to evaporate.

Echo

Building a Great Lakes toxic legacy

By |

Millions of dollars have been spent cleaning historic Great Lakes contamination. Millions more are sought. Does it make sense to clean the lakes before the pollution sources are eliminated? A look at toxic fallout. An ill wind blows no good
As contaminated sediment is cleaned up in the Great Lakes, persistent pollutants continue to blow in, threatening again to poison soil and harm human health.