Echo

Celebrate Valentine’s Day on a frigid Great Lakes beach

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By Mallory McKnight

How is a modern Great Lakes girl – jaded by chocolates, roses and candlelight — to celebrate Valentine’s Day in a thoroughly original way? Old stand-by getaways include the ski lodge, urban hotel room or rustic bed and breakfast. But one destination that usually gets left off the list is a no-brainer for Great Lakes residents any other time of the year. There are 10,368 miles of shoreline along the entire Great Lakes basin, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. There’s no reason that entire beautiful coastline should be a vacation destination only four months out of the year.

Echo

Send a valentine to the waterway you love

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By Shaheen Kanthawala

Do you love clean waterways? This Valentine’s Day you can let them know. Environment America, an organization that aims to protect air, water and open spaces, developed a campaign to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s initiative to restore the protections of the Clean Water Act. The organization says the law is under attack in the courts, putting some protections in limbo and blocking  attempts by Congress to restore them. Environment America is sending valentines submitted by supporters of the campaign to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

Echo

Ex-cons get green work as first step to new life

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Some communities are exploring green job initiatives as an opportunity for ex-prisoners to rebuild their lives. The Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative (MPRI), a statewide effort led by the Department of Corrections that does job placement for former prisoners, provide a pathway out of the incarceration cycle for an increasing number of former prisoners.

Echo

Five great ideas for dining sustainably on Valentine’s Day

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By Allison Jarrell

Go Meatless:  This Valentine’s Day falls on a Monday so go meatless! The Meatless Monday non-profit initiative hopes to improve personal health (and the health of the planet) by reducing participant’s meat consumption by 15 percent. Not only will skipping meat once a week reduce your carbon footprint, it’s a great way to try new vegetarian recipes, like Black Bean Sesame Veggie Hash or Green Tea Tofu Soba Salad! Buy Local: Supporting your local economy is a great way to live sustainably while helping others in your community. Instead of buying an expensive bottle of imported Port to share with your romantic veggie dinner, buy wine from a local winery.

Echo

It takes more than money to restore a watershed

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President Obama’s effort to jumpstart long-overdue cleanup projects could be in trouble. Insiders wonder if the new Congress will set the budgetary needle closer to zero. But it will take more than money for the lakes to reach their potential.

Echo
Jeff Gillies

Wisconsin newspaper criticizes government outreach on lake levels

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has for more than a year reported on the controversy surrounding a binational study on the cause of low water levels on lakes Michigan and Huron:

– The controversy surrounding the study board’s initial results
– The controversy of whether the study board was withholding a second report that contradicted the study’s results
– The controversy of the location and timing of official public hearings on the study

Recently, the International Upper Great Lakes Study published on its website an article on some Lake Michigan property owners’ preferences against government intervention to correct Lake Michigan’s low water level. Not surprisingly, the Journal Sentinel found it controversial. I wrote about the study board’s post for Echo. The biggest point of dispute is the post’s headline, “Lake Michiganders Don’t Want to See Water Levels Raised.” That sentiment conflicts with the majority of people attending a public hearing on the issue held in Wisconsin back in March 2010.

Echo

Save a lake, eat an invasive

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The next time you’re complaining about Great Lakes invasive species, do something about it. Go home, cook one up and eat it. Spoil your taste buds with some savory, smoked Asian carp or let your kitchen fill with the eel-like fish aroma of sea lamprey pie or lamprey stew. Yum. Not into smoked things or pie?

Echo

Taste of Change

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This coming Saturday, February 12 the Youth Karate-Ka Association, a Michigan organization dedicated to teaching youth about farming and karate as self-defense, will host YKA Taste of Change — an event that will promote the association and show the documentary, “Kings of Flint.”

Produced by Michigan State University professor and students, “Kings of Flint” follows Flint, Mich. residents as they attempt to build a greener future for the city. Last summer Great Lakes Echo ran a series documenting the progression of the film called “The Greening of Flint.”

The event will also include a silent auction that will benefit the association. It starts at 6 p.m. at this address:

Beecher Village Hall, G-5226 N. Saginaw St. Flint, Michigan

Also check out the documentary’s soundtrack written by four Flint high school students.