Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/keweir/page/40/)
(NY) New York Times – Most of the world’s important commercial fish species have been declining for years. Nearly one-fourth are unable, essentially, to reproduce. The biggest cause of the deterioration in ocean health – bigger than climate change or pollution – is overfishing. American fisheries are in better shape than most but not by much. More
(WI) The Capital Times – Zebra mussels are being muscled out of the Great Lakes by cousin quagga. Research done by a University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral candidate showed the quagga mussel to have become the dominant of the two species in the calm waters of the Great Lakes while the zebra mussel covers the bottoms of faster-moving waters in rivers and streams, UW-Madison announced in a news release. The reason? Grip. More
(MI) Detroit Free Press – A proposed magnetic railway along I-96 to Lansing and Ann Arbor would be faster and safer for passengers than a high-speed rail that uses existing tracks, a legislative tatask force was told Monday. In fact, the federal government should focus more on building a technologically advanced high-speed passenger rail system along interstate highways, rather than upgrading tracks owned and used by freight rail companies, said Steve Purchase, a spokesman for H Inc., a Lansing urban development firm that is not affiliated with the proposed project. More
(MI) The Mudpuppy – A new Evergreen Solar facility in Midland is hiring, again.The company has posted openings for five jobs so far this month. The openings are for three process technicians and two production shift supervisors. The plant will make a patented product called String Ribbon for use in photovoltaic panels. More
(MI) The Detroit News – Thousands of yellow rubber ducks raced down an Oakland County river to raise money for the Oakland Plus for Clean Water initiative. The first Duck Regatta, on Sunday afternoon outside the Cranbrook Institute of Science along the Kingswood shoreline, aided the nonprofit’s initiative in Oakland County and surrounding areas. The event also helps support the Oakland Plus environmental education programs in schools. More
(MI) Detroit Free Press – If confirmed as a case of H1N1, Ryan Settlemoir’s death would be the third in Michigan from the virus. According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, there have been 418 confirmed cases of H1N1 in the state. In the United States, there have been 17,855 confirmed or probable cases and 45 deaths from the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Michigan Department of Community Health is doing further testing to confirm what caused Settlemoir’s death. Health departments in Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties also are investigating the death, Madison Heights Police Chief Kevin Sagan said.
(MI) Detroit Free Press – City officials have applied for a $1.2-million federal grant to buy hybrid vehicles and cut energy costs. The funding, from the Department of Energy and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, could be approved this fall. More
(NY) New York Times – The Obama administration said Thursday that it would toughen standards for mountaintop-removal coal mining but would not end the practice as some environmental groups had hoped. Officials from four agencies said they had agreed to order a more rigorous legal and environmental review of pending and future applications for mountaintop mining in Appalachia. The technique involves blasting the tops off mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams. The practice has buried hundreds of miles of streams and has polluted water throughout the region. More
(MI) The Detroit News – Genesee County’s proposal to draw 85 million gallons of water per day from Lake Huron is likely to face a legal challenge from at least one other Michigan county. Genesee buys its water from the city of Flint, which buys it from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. County officials say they are looking for other options in the hope of securing better prices and reliability for its customers, and they are negotiating with Detroit Water and Sewerage for a possible long-term deal. Last month, the county’s drain commission applied to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for permission to build a pipe system and withdraw water from Lake Huron. More
(NY) Newsday – The American eel has for millennia carried out a remarkable survival saga, swimming thousands of miles of ocean to reach Lake Ontario, where it matures the swims back to its ocean birthplace to spawn and die. But after 125 million years, the eel is struggling to run the gauntlet that humans have thrown in its way and is vanishing from the St. Lawrence River-Lake Ontario system, say New York and Canadian scientists. Scientists estimate when the Onondaga Indians fished the lake centuries ago, there were up to 60 million eels thriving in the Lake Ontario system. As recently as the 1980s, the American eel population in Lake Ontario topped 10 million eels, according to harvest studies.