Echo

NASA: Moon may have more water than the Great Lakes

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The fight to keep Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes isn’t just regional anymore. Things just got global, if not interplanetary. That’s because new NASA-funded research suggests that the amount of water locked up in Earth’s longtime orbital nemesis — the moon — could exceed the volume of the Great Lakes. So unless the region conserves every drop it can, I’ll have to listen to my grandkids prattle on about how “The Great Lakes were cool until their volume was marginalized by the discovery of hydroxyl indigenous to lunar apatite, a water-bearing mineral.” Lousy moon-brats.

Echo

Beer + Great Lakes = photo contest

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Echo reporter Andrew Norman broke a big story this spring: People like beer, and the Great Lakes are full of its primary ingredient. That story has sources from some of the region’s small breweries hailing the region’s versatile water, which lends itself to a diverse set of beer styles. But beer giant Budweiser also has love for the lakes, and is once again partnering with the Biodiversity Project’s Great Lakes Forever program to sponsor their sixth annual photo contest. The contest has professional and amateur categories, and the top prize is a kayak and a Garmin navigation system. Plus, the best photo will be immortalized on history’s most timeless canvas, the beer coaster — thousands of which will be distributed to bars across the region.

Echo

Michigan Conservation Voters grade lawmakers’ environmental votes

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Today the Michigan League of Conservation Voters slapped a big fat zero on 12 Michigan legislators for lousy environmental voting records. The scores are in the non-profit group’s 2009-2010 Environmental Scorecard, a report that rates the state’s elected officials based on their voting record on bills that would affect the state’s natural resources and its citizens’ environmental health. You can read the 20-page report here (PDF) or search for your Senator or Representative here. Those earning the zero-percent “Dis-Honorable Mention” include Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) and Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom (R-Muskegon). Van Woerkom is chair of the Senate Agriculture and Bioeconomy Committee and vice chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Committee.

Echo

Scientists to Congress: Count carbon from burning biomass

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Echo recently covered the prospect of the Great Lakes states supplanting their steady diet of coal with biomass — that’s trees, crop waste and other plants that can be burned for energy. It’s an attractive but tricky plan. If done right, it could be a “carbon-neutral” fuel because crops can be managed to absorb carbon dioxide and the vegetation would theoretically decompose and release its carbon anyway. If done wrong, we’ll rack up a carbon debt from still-recovering forest resources instead of fossil fuels. If it wasn’t already complicated enough, try figuring out how biomass emissions ought to figure into Senate climate legislation released this month by Sens.

Echo
Think of the children

Carp bomb gallery

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We took some of the best reader contributions to our carp bomb feature and assembled them into their own gallery. And yes, we realize that this invasive species is a serious threat to the Great Lakes. We also think it’s OK to lighten up once and awhile. So enjoy.