Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/category/test/page/74/)
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State workers and environmental groups will use a federal grant to help get the Kirtland’s warbler off the list of endangered species.
The $171,000 grant will go toward a range of activities in Northeast Michigan, including the planting of two million jack pine seedlings, which are the only habitat the bird can nest in.
Mr. Great Lakes (Jeff Kart) reports from Bay City, Michigan’s Delta College Q-90.1 FM
.Sept. 27, 2013 – Mr. Great Lakes – Jeff Kart – The Environment Report by jeffkart
This week, Kart discusses a draft report on renewable energy in Michigan. Text at Mr. Great Lakes
This August photographer Ken Scott captured this panorama, highlighting a storm front moving over Lake Michigan, near Northport, Mich. The photo was taken just before sunset, showing colorful clouds and a low hanging sun. This photo was featured on Earth Science Picture of the Day.
Scientists are linking the ear bones of fish to the water chemistry of the wetlands they visit.
The research is a new tool in figuring out just where fish travel and has implications for targeting wetlands for protection.
In this series, Echo samples successful and ongoing restoration projects in each Great Lakes state. New York projects include extensive cleanup efforts at Buffalo Creek and the St. Lawrence River.
Architect-futurist: Think locally, act locally by Great Lakes Echo
For more than 30-years, Andrés Duany has sought to end suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment, both in American cities and around the world. Duany is credited with advancing the design aesthetic known as “New Urbanism.” The New Urbansim movement urges people to move beyond 20th century thinking, focusing on ideas that don’t cost money. Another important aspect of Duany’s aesthetic is climate change. He says that there is no evidence that the world will “beat” climate change and because of this western society will enter into a period of demoralization. Duany believes the way to avoid this depressing state is to act locally.
Michigan Rep. Bob Genetski, R- Saugatuck, has introduced a bill that would allow the state to compensate localities for fighting fires on state-owned land through the already-established Forest Development Fund. Wildfires strain the resources of small, under-equipped localities, he says.
Michigan is losing $229,491 in federal timber payments this year because of the budget sequestration — money that would otherwise be used for rural roads and schools, environmental work in the state’s three national forests and county wildfire projects.
Nationwide, there are 1,320 final sites on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priority List of waste sites that have released or can release hazardous contaminants. They are either awaiting or undergoing cleanup. Sites can be deleted from the list when “no further response is required to protect human health or the environment,” according to the EPA. Each site is scored through the Hazard Ranking System on a scale from 0-100. The higher the score, the greater threat they represent.
Commentary
By Ken Winter
Back years ago, there used to be a joke that rural dirt roads were either sprayed just before local elections to keep the electorate happy or a township or county official lived along the road. Same held true for snow plowing. The roads still get sprayed, but some people are beginning to ask with what? After the Traverse City Record-Eagle first reported on a road spraying complaint last month in Benzie County, west of near Traverse City, other county road commissioners are being asked the same question. The incident started when Bryan Black, a Benzie County farmer and former oil industry welder, first raised concerns about the liquid a truck was spraying on dirt roads around his farm north of Lake Ann to the Michigan Department of Environment Quality.