Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/dschoenherr/)
By Daniel Schoenherr
A new Senate bill would make it easier to subdivide parcels of 10 or more acres in what proponents say would encourage construction of more affordable housing. Critics counter it could put a strain on municipal infrastructure. Sponsor is from St. Clair Shores.
By Daniel Schoenherr
Zebra and quagga mussels have threatened Great Lakes ecosystems since they arrived in the 1980s. Now the invasive species are acting as unlikely allies in identifying pollution hotspots. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mussel Watch program is collecting the mollusks at sites across the Great Lakes to measure the concentration of harmful pollutants in their tissue. A report with the results, expected this fall, will serve as an indicator to communities that they may be in need of cleanup, said one of the program’s leaders. Mussel Watch started along the Atlantic coast in 1986 and is the “longest running continuous contaminant-monitoring program of its kind in the United States,” according to NOAA.
By Daniel Schoenherr
There’s always drama unfolding at Michigan State University’s Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center: Predators hunt prey, animals show off for potential mates and plants compete for sunlight. Later this month, though, visitors to the marsh will see a different kind of drama: a play, complete with a student cast, hand-crafted sets and a story blending science education with comedy and drama. A group of Michigan State students created the play, “The Link,” with input from experts in conservation and environmental communication. The project is part of a larger trend that blends conservation and the arts to get communities thinking about their natural areas, they say. Performances will begin at 6:30 p.m. Sept.
Like clockwork, Michigan’s Ford Lake and its downstream neighbor, Belleville Lake, turn bright green every summer due to harmful algal blooms.
The lakes, located near Ypsilanti in the southeast part of the state, have struggled for decades with phosphorus pollution that spurs algae growth.
Tucked away in the foothills of Appalachia lies Pennsylvania’s Hawk Mountain Sanctuary — a center for environmental education and a flyway for thousands of raptors each year.
Society of Environmental Journalists members attending their recent conference in Philadelphia caught the beginning of the raptor migration season at Hawk Mountain.
Less than two miles past the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are dozens of cedars stripped of their bark and left to die.
“It is probably the most obscene thing I’ve witnessed,” said Renee Dillard, an elder of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians who recently discovered the damaged trees.
At Lake Simcoe in southern Ontario, February has traditionally been the peak of ice fishing season.
But this year, the lake’s freezing cycle is in purgatory, continuing to fuel what many locals are calling Ontario’s worst ice fishing season in decades.
On July 2, 1999, 38-year-old Vicky Brockman set out with two friends down the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness’s Gunflint Trail in Minnesota.
Three days later, the group was stranded in the center of a storm with the strength of a hurricane. They rushed into their tents for shelter.
Lake Erie is the first of the Great Lakes getting connected to the internet with a series of offshore “smart” buoys.
And it’s not just for sending texts on the water.
Guinness World Records recently announced that the world’s new hottest pepper is a veggie known as Pepper X, grown by Puckerbutt Pepper Co. of Fort Mill, South Carolina.
But Ryan Karcher, a veteran pepper grower from Howell, Michigan, is contesting Pepper X’s spice and flavor with his own pepper. It will be featured in a January 22 television show called Superhot: The Spicy World of Pepper People.