Dow AgroSciences fined $70,000 by EPA for violations at Harbor Beach

(MI) Bay City Times – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached an agreement with Dow AgroSciences on alleged Clean Air Act violations at the company’s pesticide production facility in Harbor Beach. The agreement, which includes a $70,000 penalty, resolves EPA allegations that Dow Agro violated national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants at the plant, according to information from the EPA’s Region 5 office in Chicago. More

Lawmakers want to lift pesticide ban to battle bedbug blast; Ohio, Michigan among hardbitten

By Emily Lawler
Nov. 28, 2009
LANSING, Mich. — Forget letting the bedbugs bite – even having them in your home is a danger. The entire United States is dealing with a resurgence of these pesky parasites, which feed on human blood. “They can cause red itchy lesions,” said Kim Signs, a zoonotic disease epidemiologist with Michigan’s Department of Community Health.

New insight on old pesticide spells trouble for the Great Lakes’ invasive sea lamprey

By Jeff Gillies
Oct. 20, 2009

While Great Lakes officials beat back the voracious Asian carp at the gates of Lake Michigan, they still wrangle with another nasty fish that snuck in at least 90 years ago. Sea lampreys, eel-like parasitic fish native to the Atlantic Ocean, use a mouthful of teeth and a bony tongue to latch onto and scrape through fish flesh. Scientists debate whether the lamprey is native to Lake Ontario, where it was discovered in 1835. But it invaded Lake Erie by 1921 and the rest of the Great Lakes by 1946.

Caterpillars are pitching lots of tents

(MI) Traverse City Record-Eagle – The caterpillars tend to appear in waves, but it’s hard to predict when their numbers will be strongest. In years like this one, when the caterpillars are particularly abundant, it’s not surprising to see their telltale silk webs appear in other types of trees or plants. “It is very unusual for them to be as numerous as they have been for two years in a row,” said Duke Elsner, an agricultural educator for the Michigan State University Extension office in Grand Traverse County. “It’s not as widespread as last year, but where it is, I think it’s much worse.” More

Toxaphene – A stubborn pollutant persists

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.

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

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.

An ill wind blows no good

Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo 4/21/09
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. That has some experts questioning if it’s worthwhile to spend money to remove toxic sediments if they will once more become contaminated in a matter of years. “We have been very hung up on cleaning the watershed because we believed it was the source of contamination in the lake, but in recent decades contamination has come through the air,” said Mel Visser, former vice president of environmental health safety at Upjohn Pharmaceutical in Michigan and author of Cold, Clear, and Deadly: Unraveling a Toxic Legacy. “Even if you cleaned all the lakes tomorrow you wouldn’t do anything to the water because the concentration of these chemicals is controlled by the amount in the air,” said Visser, whose book describes current sources of chemicals that continue to pollute the Great Lakes’ air, food supply and water. The Great Lakes Legacy Act signed in 2002, provides funding to clean up Great Lakes sediments.