Climate

Many elderly Ohioans feel unprepared for severe weather, study finds

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By Clara Lincolnhol
Ohio took a beating from a record-breaking 73 tornadoes in 2024. Twisters and other severe weather events are becoming more common in the Midwest due to climate change, and seniors are more at risk. As the threat from major storms grows, roughly one in five older adults living in central Ohio say they feel unprepared or uncertain of their readiness for a severe weather event, according to a recent study conducted by The Ohio State University. The study surveyed more than 1,400 individuals aged 65 and older living in eight counties to gauge their preparedness for a severe weather event. Questions were based on storm-readiness recommendations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 
Overall, 78% of participants said they felt prepared for severe weather, 13% said they did not and 9% felt unsure. 
The study also asked individuals if severe weather caused them significant life disruptions, such as preventing them from getting to doctor’s appointments or from accessing medication or other vital supplies.

Waste

EPA restricts use of chemicals used in dry cleaning, brake cleaners 

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By Elinor Epperson
The Environmental Protection Agency has banned the use of perchloroethylene in dry cleaning processes. The chemical will be phased out over a 10-year period. 
The EPA has banned all uses of trichloroethylene (TCE) and most uses of perchloroethylene (PCE). Those are cancer-causing chemicals used in a variety of consumer products and industrial processes. TCE is used in spray coatings for arts and crafts, for example. The new rules will ban both chemicals from all consumer products, most within a year, according to the EPA.

Wildlife

Michigan’s lost prairies: Grassland restoration fights wildlife decline

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By Ruth Thornton

Gary Groff fondly remembers hunting all day on his grandfather’s land as a boy. “For my dad’s life he could not believe that I could go out there before daylight and come back after dark,” he said. 

Now retired for many years, he still hunts the central Michigan property with friends. The parcel is partially wooded and partially farmed, but the farmland is poor. “The soil is sandier than heck,” Groff said, and the farmer who rented it did not make much money from the crops. 

So, a few years ago, they enrolled the parcel in a government set-aside program and seeded it with native grasses and wildflowers. Now, the farmer “gets paid more for leaving it idle than he does for farming,” Groff said.  

The program is one of many by state and federal agencies to restore grasslands and native prairies in Michigan.

Transportation

Transit agencies to test thermal cameras to beef up traffic safety

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By Anna Rossow
Capital News Service
Federal grant money will help Michigan’s Department of Transportation implement increased safety measures for public transit drivers and pedestrians. MDOT will receive over $500,000 in funding to install thermal imaging cameras on public transit vehicles to help prevent collisions with people and animals in a variety of weather and light conditions. According to MDOT, the cameras will be installed on up to 60 vehicles at four rural and urban transit agencies: the Blue Water Transit Area in Port Huron, the city of Alma, the Community Action Agency of South Central Michigan based in Battle Creek and the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan. The state’s application for the technology started when Janet Geissler, a mobility specialist at the department, saw a news release on such cameras being used on cars to detect pedestrians, cyclists and animals
She said it is a good technology that is applicable to transit vehicles. She said, “Collisions between transit vehicles and people are a really serious issue.”
The cameras will be mounted on various-sized vehicles – large and small buses, vans and motor coaches – she said. 
Geissler said visible light cameras are being used to alert drivers of obstacles but don’t work as well in poor lighting conditions. 
“The thermal imaging cameras will detect that obstacle, the person, whether it’s nighttime, whether it’s a snowstorm, whether it’s foggy or whether there’s sun glare,” she said.

The Buzz

West Michigan timber fraud earns prison term

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By Eric Freedman
Capital News Service
The former owner of a West Michigan timber harvesting business has been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for cheating investors of more than $2 million. Authorities said Trent Witteveen of Montague ran a Ponzi scheme involving phony documents and misusing some investors’ money to repay others. 
U.S. Judge Robert Jonker also ordered Witteveen, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud, to pay $844,282 in restitution. The grand jury’s indictment laid out the background this way, saying Witteveen “earned his living in the timber harvesting business, initially as a subcontractor or independent contractor to sawmills: 
He registered a company called Tall Timber and ran the fraud scheme from June 2018 to January 2021, the indictment charged. 
It described how Witteveen approached landowners whose property had hardwood and softwood trees for purchase by the lumber industry and sawmills, mostly around Pentwater and elsewhere in Northwest Michigan 
“Had he operated his business in a lawful manner, Witteveen would have used the investment capital to pay the landowners and harvest timber, including by subcontracting the cutting of the timber,” the indictment said. “When the cutters harvested the timber, it would be transported to various sawmills who would determine a price and pay Titan Timber.”
But that’s not what actually happened, the indictment charged. Instead, he used proceeds from one investor to repay others and spent their money for his own personal expenses and lifestyle. 
The defense offered a somewhat different spin on events:
In a sentence memorandum, defense lawyer Ryan Maesen of Walker said, “For a time, the business went as planned and investors were paid off.

Wildlife

Robins may be a predictor of dangerous lead levels in soil, study finds

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By Eric Freedman
Capital News Service
Remember the canary in the coal mine? If the caged canary died, that was an urgent early warning for miners that the air was too dangerous to breathe and to get above-ground as quickly as possible. Now there’s evidence from Southeast Michigan that the American robin can provide an early warning about dangerous lead levels in the soil. A new study in the journal “Urban Ecosystems” found that high blood lead levels in robins can accurately predict where soil is contaminated. 
Exposure of children to lead is linked to damage to their nervous system and brain, learning and behavioral problems, and speech and hearing problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is relatively little knowledge about the health impacts of blood lead levels on songbirds such as robins.

Waste

Minnesota debates what counts as carbon-free energy

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By Ruth Thornton
A recent decision by Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission could mean that wood and trash will be considered “carbon-free” energy sources under the state’s new climate law. The law, passed in 2023, requires all electricity to come from carbon-free sources by 2040, with interim goals defined for 2030 and 2035. However, it did not define which energy sources meet that definition and instead tasked the PUC to make that decision with public input. At first glance, the definition of carbon-free energy seems straightforward. But there is disagreement over the details.

Land

New strategies driving public lands acquisitions

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By Gabriel S. Martinez
Capital News Service
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is looking for deals to create more green space in populated areas as part of an updated public lands strategy. The goal is to equitably provide public access to green space, wildlife habitat and public hunting closer to where people live, department officials say. Efforts in the past two years include acquisitions in Van Buren, Monroe and Ionia counties. 
Those involved buying private land adjacent to public land to consolidate green spaces. 
Scott Whitcomb, the director of the DNR’s Office of Public Lands, said a major pending deal involving Black River Ranch in Sanilac County is expected to close by the end of 2025. That property acquisition will bring in about 8,844 acres, including over 14 miles of the Black River, the East Branch of the Black River, Stewart Creek and three lakes including 150-acre Silver Lake. It will become part of the Pigeon River Country Forest Management Unit.

Art

New book explores the wonders of inland waters

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By Isabella Figueroa 
Around 97% of all the water on the planet is in the vast oceans that cover more than two-thirds of its surface. “But Seas are not the only body of water that make Earth special,” ecologist David Strayer writes in his new book. “Beyond the Sea: The Hidden Life in Lakes, Streams, and Wetlands,” presents the lesser-known facts of freshwater ecosystems and how they affect our everyday lives. 
Before retiring in 2016, Strayer spent nearly 50 years studying freshwater ecology, most recently at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, where he developed an expertise in the nearby Hudson River. The book lays out the good, the bad and the ugly of the world’s inland water bodies, which Strayer reports are home to some 2,600 plant species and 150,000 animal species, about half of which are insects. While celebrating that abundance of life the book doesn’t shy away from the serious threats and challenges that inland waters face, including pollution, invasive species, climate change and the damaging impacts of dams and water diversions.

The Buzz

Wolves could expand across the eastern U.S.—but they might need help

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By Ruth Thornton

Gray wolves could thrive in the eastern United States well beyond their current range in the Great Lakes region, but they might have a hard time reaching other suitable habitats without human intervention, researchers say. Wolves once had the largest known range of any land mammal but they were nearly exterminated in the United States in the early 1900s after persecution by humans. 

Their population only recovered after they were placed under federal protection in the 1970s. They have since recolonized some areas where they once flourished, including in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

A 2022 study analyzed which areas in the eastern U.S. still have suitable habitat for wolves and are connected enough to each other so wolves might be able to travel between them. 

To do that, the researchers used survey data collected between 2018 and 2020 by biologists working for the natural resource departments in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. 

They then modeled the characteristics of the habitats where wolves were found and predicted where else in the eastern U.S. large tracts of suitable areas occur. They also modeled how connected to each other those areas are. They found that six areas had good habitat and were large enough to sustain wolves, but the animals occur in only one of them, the western Great Lakes.