By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 13, 2009
Some Great Lakes brownfields will turn green if Congress passes a $475 million restoration package.
Literally.
The U.S. Forest Service seeks $2 million of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to transform  unusable industrial lots into parks and trailways – and clean up some contaminants in the process.
While the forest service has  long restored natural vegetation and has an urban forestry division, this will be its first foray into phytoremediation, said Steven Davis, a watershed specialist with the forest service’s Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry …

Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
July 17, 2009
Those looking to enjoy a meal of Great Lakes’ fish are best off going to Lake Superior, according to a recent Canadian study.
The report compared the number of fish consumption advisories for each of the Great Lakes in 2009 to the number in 2007. Lake Superior had the least restrictive advisories, said Mike Layton, author of the report by Environmental Defence, a Toronto-based nonprofit that focuses on improving health and the environment.
Consumption advisories indicate the presence of chemical contaminants in fish.

(MI) Muskegon Chronicle – The material in the six contaminated lagoons on the former Whitehall Leather Co. tannery site likely won’t be removed, based on comments Wednesday night by environmental consultants and state Department of Environmental Quality officials.

(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -No amount of burnishing will change the fact that the chemical BPA isn’t worth the risk to public health. It should be banned.

(MI) Bay City Times – A university study says agriculture is the main contributor of E. coli bacteria to Lake Huron.

(IL) Chicago Tribune – To walk the grounds of the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant in 2009 is to see nature’s best effort to heal the scars of a once-heralded manufacturing empire.

(MI) Michigan Messenger – Federal environmental officials recently announced an agreement with Georgia-Pacific Corp. to begin work on capping a Kalamazoo Township landfill filled with material laden with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, part of a federal Superfund cleanup of the Kalamazoo River.

(NY) New York Times – There are not many towns in America that would welcome the 2.5 million cubic yards of toxic sludge being dredged from the bottom of the Hudson River in New York, but to hear Mayor Matt White tell it, Eunice is one of them.

(ON) The Sarnia Observer – Toxic chemicals are putting some species of fish at risk in the St. Clair River, a wildlife ecologist says.

(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.