Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/great-lakes-echo/page/33/)
The nation’s largest urban solar plant is built on a Chicago industrial site once contaminated by lead paint. It’s part of an alternative energy trend: Using abandoned urban properties to generate power where people live.
The shores of Lake Erie here are scarred with remnants of another time. But amidst the eyesores is evidence of Buffalo’s exciting future. Eight wind turbines hint at a broader redevelopment driven by diverse motivations. Local officials are using the past to prepare for the future and revive a city from economic shock.
Abandoned urban lots are community eyesores that increasingly represent economic opportunity.
These so-called brownfields carry a lot of social ills, but finding a way to reuse them is more important than ever.
Heavy rainfall often overflows Detroit sewers, dumping untreated human and industrial waste, toxic materials and other debris into streets and waterways.
Separating sanitary and storm systems is costly and time consuming. So Detroit is tackling water before it hits the streets.
The award-winning online tool quickly assesses if a proposed water withdrawal harms aquatic life or requires a permit.
But funding for the program is eroding.
Farmers, the largest group of users, are exempt from the fees that support it.
A growing popularity of bicycle-friendly legislation helps fuel the growth of bicycle cooperatives. In recent years five Great Lakes states have passed statewide “Complete Streets” legislation to encourage bicycling.
A bill before Michigan’s Legislature would begin to regulate wind farms in the state’s Great Lakes waters.
Whether lawmakers will approve it before a new governor and legislators take office is uncertain. And offshore wind power faces other hurdles.
The two-year program develops ways to increase green jobs in six regions of the nation.
Metro Chicago and Michigan are targeted in the Great Lakes region.
Regions that were targeted had the greatest potential for green jobs and access to community colleges already working on job training and on greening their campuses.
It’s been a long road, but it’s time to reveal the Great Lakes SmackDown! champion.
Did the Eurasian Invasion take the gold? Or was it the Quagmeister? Click here to find out.
By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason
The time is finally here to determine which invasive species you think is the worst for the Great Lakes. Will it be the water-filtering quagga mussel? Or the vampire-like sea lamprey? You know the drill. Fight and debate for your pick below.