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The Kalamazoo oil spill: One year later

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Today, a year after the oil spill on the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan, it still poses a major cleanup challenge, the Associated Press reports. Enbridge Inc., the owner of the pipeline that caused the 800,000-gallon oil spill, has an Aug. 31 deadline given by the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the oil. But the oil footprint is larger than anticipated and many pockets of oil may not have been identified.  Regulators told the Associated Press that this could mean the cleanup may continue for a couple of years.

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Algae attacks Ohio’s largest inland lake; wet spring and manure blamed

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A popular recreational lake in western Ohio has nearly died, economically and environmentally, because of algae thriving on runoff from farm fields, officials say.

Grand Lake St. Marys is now undergoing a clean up to get rid of toxic algae mostly attributed to manure from nearby fields flowing into the lake during the wet spring.

As a part of the $3.4 million operation, the lake will be treated with nearly 2.6 million gallons of the chemical compound alum.

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4-lot purchase will clean up, beautify Minnehaha Creek

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(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Minnehaha Creek Watershed District plans to buy four lots totaling just over 11 acres on Minnehaha Creek in St. Louis Park in a long-term effort to make the creek cleaner, more scenic and easier to access in St. Louis Park and Hopkins. Most of the land in the 7200 block of Excelsior Boulevard is a cattail wetland through which the creek once meandered. More