Echo

Judge Rejects Approval of Biotech Sugar Beets

By |

(NY) The New York Times – A federal judge has ruled that the government failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of genetically engineered sugar beets before approving the crop for cultivation in the United States. The decision could lead to a ban on the planting of the beets, which have been widely adopted by farmers. In a decision issued Monday, Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said that the Agriculture Department should have done an environmental impact statement. He said it should have assessed the consequences from the likely spread of the genetically engineered trait to other sugar beets or to the related crops of Swiss chard and red table beets.  More

Echo

Wheeling wetlands dispute on settlement track

By |

(IL) Chicago Tribune – In July, the Chicago District of the Corps found that village-owned wetlands west of Mark Smith’s Prairie Park condominium development at 700 N. Wolf Rd. had been filled improperly. Smith and village officials agree Smith’s company, Smith Family Construction Inc., did the filling without authorization or approval from village officials.”We encroached on some village property slightly,” Smith said last week of the work he said his company mistakenly did on the land east and south of the Rogers Memorial Diversion Channel that takes water to the Des Plaines River. More

Echo

Scientists to complete sanctuary sinkhole research

By |

(MI) The Alpena News – A group of scientists who have been studying three Lake Huron sinkholes within the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary will go on the lake today to gather geological data to wrap up more than a year of research. During the summer of 2008, a group consisting of scientists from varying scientific disciplines traveled to Alpena to begin gathering data as part of a research project funded through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration. More

Echo

Michigan receives $1 million to bolster smart grid projects

By |

(MI) Bay City Times – The Michigan Public Service Commission is receiving more than $1 million in federal stimulus money to help implement smart grid technology projects in Michigan. The money is part of $144 million announced this week by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a keynote speech to the Gridweek 2009 Conference in Washington, D.C. More

Echo

Pavement to Parks

By |

(NY) The New York Times – Last Friday, cities and towns throughout the world celebrated Park(ing) Day, an event created to bring awareness to the importance of using and enjoying public space. Witnessing all those swaths of pavement transformed into plant-filled community gathering spaces (Streetfilms.org has a short film of San Francisco’s Park(ing) Day) got me thinking about – given the tangential way my brain works – the process of land-banking. More

Echo

Local-food advocates point out hidden costs in groceries

By |

(OH) Cleveland Plain Dealer – Despite the clamor for local food, only about 1 percent of the food eaten in Ohio is grown in Ohio. And of the 14 million acres farmed in our state, 8 million produce corn and soybeans. Those crops are subsidized by the government, shipped out of state to make processed food, then shipped back for sale. Mary K. Holmes gave those statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to those attending a forum Saturday, Sept. 19, sponsored by the Innovative Farmers of Ohio, a small-farm support group.

Echo

County could ban urban phosphorus

By |

(MI) Battle Creek Enquirer – A countywide ban on phosphorus use on lawns would prevent unwanted algae growth within lakes and streams, said Christine Kosmowski and Cheryl Vosburg, representatives of the Lake Allegan/Kalamazoo River Watershed TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) Implementation Committee. Excessive algae chokes waterways by absorbing the oxygen that other plants and animals need to maintain a balanced ecosystem. It crowds out sporting fish, such as bass and trout, while making the water murky and clogged with weeds, Kosmowski said. More

Echo

Was paradise lost?

By |

(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Health care as we know it didn’t exist 3,000 years ago. But along the Georgia coast, the Pacific Northwest, and coastal Brazil, people grew tall and strong and lived relatively free of disease. They ate game, fish, shellfish and wild plants. But as corn farming spread through various regions of the Americas, people got shorter. Many became prone to anemia and began dying of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.More

Echo

Elders spread word on mercury contamination

By |

(WI) Indian Country Today – In olden days, Clarissa Welds, an elder of Lake Superior, as she calls herself, never worried about how many fish she ate. “It was the way of our ancestors. We were fisherman, and Mother Earth gave us what we needed to survive. We didn’t have to worry if the food was safe,” said the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians citizen. More

Energy

Met Council gets $1.1 million for gas hybrid electric buses

By |

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Two green transit projects in Minnesota are among 43 nationwide receiving $100 million in funding from the Economic Recovery Act, the Obama administration announced Monday. About $1.1 million is going to the Metropolitan Council to replace diesel buses with gas hybrid electric buses in the Twin Cities area. More