Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/keweir/page/41/)
(MI) The Detroit News – State wildlife experts want to know why thousands of dead fish are floating on Lake St. Clair near St. Clair Shores. Rotting fish, including smallmouth bass, muskie, walleye, perch and bass, are littering boat wells and shorelines across several miles. “It was just unbelievable,” said Adam Jankowski, a Harrison Township resident who usually puts his boat in the water at St.
(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Cutting carbon dioxide emissions won’t be cheap, but delaying action on addressing global warming will be worse, both for the environment and the Midwest economy. That’s the conclusion of a report released Monday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The group is urging that the Midwest turn the challenge of energy and climate change into a competitive advantage and says enactment of greenhouse gas regulations is “essential to the Midwest’s future prosperity and competitiveness.” The study released Monday by the global affairs council’s energy task force said the region can tap its potential in the areas of energy efficiency and low-carbon energy production, including renewable energy, nuclear power and advanced coal-fired power plants that bury the carbon dioxide released from burning coal underground. More
(MI) Detroit Free Press – The Environmental Protection Agency has given Lake Michigan Carferry, owner of the SS Badger, until 2012 to change its practices — a deadline the company says it will meet. The Badger hauls people and vehicles between Ludington and Manitowoc, Wis. The Badger’s crew mixes coal ash waste with water and dumps the slurry into Lake Michigan during each trip. “It’s been tested. It’s inert, benign.
(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Wisconsin’s path to a greener energy future is anything but a breeze. Optimism abounds that the wind power sector will create jobs and help reduce the state’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Gov. Jim Doyle’s global warming task force has recommended the state move toward getting 25% of its electricity from wind power by 2025. And several reports are touting the promise of job creation and emissions reduction from tapping more renewable energy and energy efficiency. A report being released Monday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs concludes that the Midwestern economy can capitalize on its wind resource and expertise in areas such as vehicle technology and energy efficiency if the United States passes limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
(MI) Bay City Times – Michigan’s solar industry has a dirty secret: It needs a lot of coal-fired power. The process of manufacturing base materials and panels to capture electricity from the sun is energy-intensive, utility officials say. And that energy comes mostly from fossil fuels in Michigan, where up to eight new coal-fired power plants are on the drawing board. More
(MI) Detroit Free Press – For roughly six decades until 1980, Fighting Island in the Detroit River was a white, desolate moonscape, 80% of it covered with 20 million cubic yards of highly acidic brine waste dumped there from a soda ash plant. Runoff from the island washed into the already polluted river, and pale dust drifted in the wind from the island onto tomato plants and cars in nearby towns. Aerial photos show a stark, barren wasteland in the shadow of steel and coke plants on the shoreline. There were no places for birds to nest or land, no food for deer or squirrels. More
(NY) The New York Times -Swimmers were told to stay out of the water on Sunday at Coney Island and nearby Manhattan Beach because of concerns about a sewage overflow. The city’s parks department posted signs Sunday saying swimming was not permitted at the two Brooklyn beaches. But the Coney Island boardwalk was open, and sunbathing on the sand was allowed. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection said ocean water at the two beaches might be contaminated by raw sewage from a sewage treatment plant that overflowed. More
(MI) Muskegon Chronicle – Since the early 1990s, the environmental mess that is the former Whitehall Leather Co. tannery site and adjacent Tannery Bay has been the source of many meetings, debates, deadline delays and negotiations. The final cleanup plan, which will effectively end much of that work and prepare the site for redevelopment, is nearly ready for submission by Genesco, the former owner of the site that is still responsible for its cleanup. More
(MI) Detroit Free Press – A proposed railroad-centered development just over the Livingston County line and a similar plan for land in Howell will serve as catalysts to accelerate plans for a commuter rail line between Howell and Ann Arbor, a developer and rail officials said. Developer Earl LaFave plans to build a mixed commercial and residential development on roughly 25 acres adjacent to rails that would be part of the Washtenaw and Livingston Line, or WALLY, in Northfield Township. More
(NY) The New York Times – The federal government is spending $5 billion in stimulus money to weatherize homes across the country. That is almost as much as it has spent on weatherization since the program was created in the 1970s to cut heating bills and conserve oil for low-income people. An unusually large share of the money will be spent not on keeping cold air out but on keeping cold air in. As a result of a political compromise with Sun Belt lawmakers last decade, the enormous expansion of the weatherization program will invoke a rarely used formula that will devote 31 percent of the money, nearly double the old share of 16 percent, to help states in hot climates, like Florida, save on air-conditioning. More