Waste

EPA restricts use of chemicals used in dry cleaning, brake cleaners 

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By Elinor Epperson
The Environmental Protection Agency has banned the use of perchloroethylene in dry cleaning processes. The chemical will be phased out over a 10-year period. 
The EPA has banned all uses of trichloroethylene (TCE) and most uses of perchloroethylene (PCE). Those are cancer-causing chemicals used in a variety of consumer products and industrial processes. TCE is used in spray coatings for arts and crafts, for example. The new rules will ban both chemicals from all consumer products, most within a year, according to the EPA.

Transportation

Michigan wants to become a hub for hydrogen 

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By Elinor Epperson
Capital News Service
Michigan is part of an effort to build hydrogen infrastructure in the Midwest. 
The Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2) has received $22 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to plan several projects, three of which are in Michigan. The alliance, backed by the Michigan Infrastructure Office, wants to expand the Flint Mass Transportation Authority’s fleet of hydrogen fuel buses. 
There are plans to build a hydrogen production facility in Ypsilanti, in partnership with the American Center for Mobility. And the other proposed project would be a hydrogen fuel truck stop in Detroit. Hydrogen is a clean energy alternative to electrifying heavy-duty trucks, according to the alliance. Electrifying big trucks, especially for long-haul travel, is challenging with current technology because of the size, weight, and charge time of electric batteries.

Transportation

State seeks feedback about pilot program for self-driving cars 

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By Elinor Epperson

Capital News Service

Three miles of westbound I-94 in Wayne and Washtenaw counties are already set up for connected and automated vehicles. Now the Department of Transportation wants public feedback on the proposed project, which would include almost 40 miles of I-94 if completed. 

 It’s proposed to eventually span about 39 miles between Ann Arbor and Detroit. The lane would be reserved for connected and automated vehicles, or CAVs for short. Connected vehicles aren’t quite driving themselves yet, but they’re equipped to talk to other vehicles. The department is assessing the project’s impact on the environment and communities around it.

Land

Industry opposition, partisan politics slow polluter-pay bills

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By Elinor Epperson

Capital News Service

It’s been one year since Michigan Democrats introduced legislation that would significantly change the state’s environmental regulations. But those bills are stuck in committee. Election distractions, negotiation, and a slim Democratic majority in the state House have kept a suite of polluter-pay bills in limbo, according to environmental advocates and one of the  sponsors. Polluter-pay laws hold businesses financially liable for contamination they cause. Lawmakers introduced the bills a year ago, but they haven’t made much progress since.

A white-tailed deer on a snowy November day in Marquette County. Image: Michigan DNR
Wildlife

Michigan is part of multi-state effort to track chronic wasting disease

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By Elinor Epperson

Researchers at Cornell University are studying whether machine learning can help states and tribes predict the spread of a dangerous disease plaguing North American deer. A recent study done in partnership with Michigan State University showed that machine learning could calculate where chronic wasting disease will spread at the county level. That information will help state and tribal agencies address a problem much larger than their individual jurisdictions, said Mitch Marcus, the wildlife health supervisor at the state Department of Natural Resources. “Wildlife and associated disease and or wildlife pathogens don’t understand or know jurisdictional boundaries,” he said. Chronic wasting disease is a neurological, degenerative disease caused by prions.

Michigan Materials Management Facilities. Image: EGLE
Energy

State expanding e-waste recycling in the Upper Peninsula

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By Elinor Epperson

Residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have more options for recycling their old electronics. That’s because of Michigan’s Electronic Waste Take-Back Program. The state program has opened nine more permanent drop-off locations for electronic waste since 2021, more than doubling the number of facilities in the U.P. The program makes sure Michigan residents have access to e-waste recycling that meets state regulations. E-waste recycling facilities have been in the Lower Peninsula for years, but the majority are in the southern part of the state. No e-waste is recycled in the U.P.

Contractors pick it up from drop-off stations or events and transport it to recycling facilities in Wisconsin or the Lower Peninsula.

ENVIRO JUSTICE DATA MAP: MiEJScreen is an online tool that maps how health and socioeconomic factors intersect with environmental contamination. Source: Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy
Climate

Michigan updates data sharing tool on environmental justice

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By Elinor Epperson

Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has updated an online tool that maps which communities may be most susceptible to adverse effects from pollution. The department first released MiEJScreen as a draft in 2022, but released an updated version in early August after seeking public comment. It says it hopes the tool will make it easier for advocates, residents and government officials to understand how environmental contamination affects different populations in their community. The tool combines data about health, socioeconomic and environmental factors to determine which communities are at higher risk of adverse effects from pollution. The data reflect what residents have known for a while, Regina Strong said.

Land

Commentary: Michigan joins federal program that collects native flora and champions restoration

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By Elinor Epperson

Of all the things I could step in while wandering the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge in Northeast Michigan, vulture vomit was not on my list. My hosts, a team of scientists looking for native plant seeds, warned me to avoid it. Elizabeth Haber is a lead botanist with Seeds of Success, a federal program that conserves and restores native flora. She and her team are combing through Michigan prairies, wetlands and forests looking for native plant seeds. “A lot of our days are just wandering around, using our intuition of where we think cool things might be,” she said.

ty Center is run by Community Action Network in partnership with the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The center’s solar power system is part of the agency’s growing renewable energy projects in the city’s underserved communities. Image: Elinor Epperson
Energy

Ann Arbor ballot proposal promises affordable access to renewable energy

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By Elinor Epperson

Ann Arbor proposed sustainable energy utility could save residents and commercial customers money on their electricity bills, according to a new report commissioned by the city. Residents of the Southeast Michigan city will vote in November on whether to establish an optional public utility that would use exclusively renewable energy generated by local systems. The project is part of its A2Zero program, which aims for carbon neutrality by 2030. If the proposal passes, it will be the first sustainable energy utility in Michigan. Similar utilities have operated in Delaware since 2007 and Washington D.C. since 2011. The report calculated cost savings based on how much it will cost the city to set up the utility and how many customers participate in the utility.

Water

Forty years on, future of contaminant plume under Ann Arbor still murky

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By Elinor Epperson

Gelman Sciences LLC manufactured medical filters for decades, but that’s not the public health issue the company is known for. Dioxane from Gelman’s Scio Township plant leaked into Ann Arbor’s groundwater, creating a plume of contamination more than 4 miles long. That contamination was discovered by a University of Michigan graduate student, Dan Bicknell, who alerted the state environmental regulator on June 26, 1984. But Gelman had been dumping the chemical since 1966. And 40 years after Bicknell blew the whistle, the plume is larger than ever.