Echo

Man’s best friend, mankind’s worst enemy?

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(ON) The Toronto Star – A new book on sustainability suggests there is an environmental disaster lurking in your home. Maybe he’s looking at you right now, tongue hanging out, waiting for you to put down the newspaper and take him for his morning walkies. According to New Zealand-based researchers Robert and Brenda Vale, large household pets chew up more resources than over-sized cars. And they are ever-so-gently suggesting that you might want to get rid of them. More

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Anhydrous ammonia leak at Dow AgroSciences under control

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(MI) Bay City Times – A small chemical leak caused about 15 minutes of excitement here today. About 2:45 p.m., a 10,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia tank sprung a leak at Dow AgroSciences, 305 N. Huron (M-25), said Harbor Beach Fire Chief John Lermont. “There was a malfunction on a tank and a small leak,” Lermont said. “They have precautionaries set up and a deluge system so everything was contained to the area. Everything worked out fine.” More

Land

Welcome to Milliken State Park

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – This park is the perfect way to honor the former governor, who was devoted to protecting Michigan’s natural resources and to ensuring public access to them — at the same time championing the state’s cities, especially Detroit; hence his “odd couple” relationship, as he called it, with Coleman Young. Milliken said he was far happier to have a park named after him than a building somewhere in Lansing. But he was at his best discussing how bad various kinds of divisiveness have been for Michigan and for metro Detroit. More

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Copenhagen climate-change talks will produce only disappointment

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(ON) The Globe and Mail – The Rubik’s cube of international negotiations opens in six weeks in Copenhagen. Anyone who had hoped for a comprehensive world deal on lowering greenhouse-gas emissions and therefore reducing the threats from climate change will be disappointed. Something might emerge from Copenhagen, but it won’t be a binding international treaty. Competing interests within and among countries are enormous, the domestic pressures against serious measures are great (including in Canada.) More

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Muskegon’s Newkirk Electric part of nation’s largest solar plant

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(MI) Muskegon Chronicle – A Muskegon contractor played a major role in building the nation’s largest commercial solar energy plant, which was to be visited by President Barack Obama today.Obama was to tour the Desoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center near Arcadia, Fla., touting alternative energy policies. The 27-megawatt, $152 million Florida Power & Light operation was built in part by Newkirk Electric of Muskegon. More

Echo

Great Lakes aid isn’t a cure-all

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – A Great Lakes restoration plan hatched by President Barack Obama in the heat of last year’s campaign has been embraced as a prescription to heal centuries of pollution and mismanagement. But while the federal government is about to spend up to $475 million toward a restoration program that ultimately could cost tens of billions of dollars, assaults continue on the world’s largest freshwater system. And the plan does little or nothing to stop them by calling for tough new laws and regulations, or ensuring that existing rules be enforced. More

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Freshwater species making comeback in Great Lakes region

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(OH) The Toledo Blade – The mighty lake sturgeon – an odd-looking North American fish that has been on Earth no fewer than 150 million years and that coexisted with dinosaurs for at least 85 million years – is making a comeback in the Great Lakes region after nearly going extinct in the early 1900s.  
Lake sturgeon is one of 27 species of sturgeon worldwide but one of only three that spends its entire life in fresh water. Most others live at sea, seeking out fresh water to spawn. More

Echo

Think twice before burning leaves, Michigan enviro quality officials say

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(MI) The Mudpuppy – Ah, fall. Cool air, crisp leaves, fine particulate matter?  The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is asking people to think twice about burning leaves when they clean up their yards this season. Mulching, by mowing those leaves over, is a better alternative, along with composting, DEQ officials say. Leaf burning creates air pollution, contributes to breathing problems and is a serious fire hazard, DEQ officials say. Not to mention that it stinks, and is illegal in many Michigan cities and communities.

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Mercury detected in mill waste

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(IN) The Post-Tribune – Mercury is contained in the 700,000 tons of blast furnace waste that ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor has stored directly on the ground less than 500 feet from Lake Michigan for the past two decades. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency discovered the mercury after testing the pile for hazardous pollution on July 30. More

Echo

Energy plant eyed in Manistique area

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(MI) The Daily Press – The Upper Peninsula Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D), is looking into the possibility of a district energy plant to power the city buildings of Manistique. According to Dave Anderson, director of the Manistique MSU Extension office and member of the RC&D, the council with the help of Schoolcraft County, is analyzing the chances of getting the plant. “There are two different studies, now one of them is currently underway,” said Anderson. “It’s sort of a pre-feasibility study – it’s just making a rough estimate of what the cost will be and whether or not this thing is even in the realm of reality.” More