Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/keweir/page/20/)
(IN) The Post-Tribune – The air around two Northwest Indiana elementary schools contains a slew of hazardous air pollutants, but not enough to be of short-term concern, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. The EPA began monitoring by Jefferson Elementary on Jackson Street in Gary and Abraham Lincoln Elementary on East 135th Street in East Chicago on Aug. 23. More
(MI) Traverse City Record-Eagle – A downstate engineering firm will probe questions surrounding design and construction of Grand Traverse County’s troubled septage plant, an effort to determine whether its architects committed professional negligence. The county’s Board of Public Works voted 7 to 1 this week to hire Grand Rapids-based engineering firm Prein & Newhof for up to $19,500 to investigate septage plant design firm Gourdie-Fraser Inc. and project manager Michael Houlihan. More
(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – The most expensive construction project in state history, We Energies’ new $2.3 billion coal-fired plant in Oak Creek, has begun generating power, having reached several construction milestones in recent months, the company’s chairman said Thursday. The plant consists of two coal-fired boilers next to an older coal plant on Lake Michigan. The first of the two boilers began burning coal earlier this month and has been running at 25% of maximum power in recent days, said Gale Klappa, chairman and chief executive of Wisconsin Energy Corp., the parent of We Energies. Bechtel Power Corp., the contractor on the project, also has made progress on building the second boiler, which is now 74% complete, Klappa said. More
(MI) The Saginaw News – Lake freighters have lightened loads for years to snake through the Saginaw River to drop off cargo.
Burroughs Materials Corp. Manager William H. Kidder hopes dredging set for this spring will end that era. His company takes in limestone used to make asphalt at the Saginaw docks. More
(MI) The Daily Mining Gazette – Last week, Gov. Jennifer Granholm issued an executive order creating the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment, effective Jan. 17, 2010. Granholm’s order will abolish the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and reverse an action by former Gov. John Engler to create the DEQ in 1995. In a news release, Granholm said, “The Department of Natural Resources and Environment is a new department for the 21st Century.” More
(MI) The Escanaba Daily Press – Proposals to buy Escanaba’s power plant and offers to sell energy to the city are under the microscope as city representatives looked deeper into details Wednesday. City administrators and members of city council and the Electrical Advisory Committee (EAC) met in a special joint meeting Wednesday to be updated on the proposals in greater depth. More
(NY) The Wall Street Journal – Thirteen Great Lakes steamships would be exempted from tougher federal air-quality standards under a provision tacked on to a government spending bill by a leading Democratic lawmaker, a move that has prompted protests from environmentalists. Ship owners who would benefit from the exemption called the provision a common-sense measure that would protect jobs in a region reeling from high unemployment. More
(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Minnesota’s first copper mine took a step forward Wednesday as state officials released a 1,500-page environmental impact study for the Iron Range proposal. The $600 million project, to be built by PolyMet Mining Inc., would include an open-pit mine near Babbitt and a processing plant near Hoyt Lakes, connected by an existing 6-mile railroad spur. Company officials said the mine would create 400 permanent jobs for more than 20 years, and would produce nickel, cobalt, platinum and other valuable metals. More
(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Research happens up close in the world’s longest continuous study of predators and prey at Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. Peterson has been watching and counting moose and wolves in this wilderness off Minnesota’s North Shore for nearly 40 of the study’s 51 years, in summer by foot and in winter by air. Now that continuity is at a breaking point. The island’s moose population is nearing a 50-year low, and what’s bad for the moose is worse for the wolves that depend on them. Peterson can see the day when the wolves die out on Isle Royale, and scientists must confront far-reaching questions: Should we intervene to help the wolves survive, or let them die out and start again?
(OH) Cleveland Plain Dealer – New proposed regulations for oil and gas drilling don’t do enough to shield the health and property rights of people in residential neighborhoods, a group of Northeast Ohio residents told lawmakers Wednesday. About three dozen members of the Northeast Ohio Gas Accountability Project (NEOGAP) descended on the Senate’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee to opposea measure that rewrites Ohio’s oil and gas drilling laws. More