Land

Detroit to host Greening the Heartland conference

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(MI) Booth Newspapers – Charles Poat is an architect and senior project manager with the Mannik & Smith Group in Canton. He’s also chairperson of the Detroit Regional Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. “It’s really easy to part of an association that’s associated with green and the environment,” says Poat. “Our membership has quadrupled in the last year.” The Detroit chapter is hosting the Greening the Heartland Conference in Detroit May 31 through June 2.

Land

Detroit farming interest grows

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – The Detroit-based Self-Help Addiction Rehabilitation Inc. (SHAR), a nonprofit drug rehab center funded by the state and others, is proposing that it be given up to 2,000 acres of vacant city-owned land to farm. The project, known as Recovery Park, would have the dual purpose of teaching addicts therapeutic and marketable skills and rehabbing the city itself, said SHAR’s chief executive, Dwight Vaughter. More

Echo

Pro/con: Ending ethanol subsidies will slash food prices

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(MN) Duluth News Tribune – In 2005, a coalition of Midwestern corn growers, giant agribusinesses, environmental groups and politicians anxious to assuage public concern over dependence on foreign oil joined together to mandate the addition of ever increasing amounts of ethanol to our gasoline. This was never a good idea, but we now know it is even worse than we imagined as we’ve learned more about its impact on our environment, our transportation infrastructure and our economy. More

Echo

Wildlife poisoning prompts state probe

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A white-tailed deer and possibly a bald eagle were victims of a wildlife poisoning in Baraga County this spring.

Although poisoning cases are rare, Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials said they want to find out exactly what happened, even if the survey takes an extended period of time.

Echo

Toxaphene – A stubborn pollutant persists

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Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
April 23, 2009

The largest, deepest and coldest Great Lake holds another distinction, – it has the highest levels of toxaphene found in the region and possibly anywhere in the world. Since federal bans on persistent pollutants in the 1970s and 80s, most chemical concentrations have declined in the Great Lakes. Some Great Lakes toxicologists say the same is true of toxaphene. But toxaphene in Lake Superior has increased by 25 percent since its ban in 1990, according to Mel Visser, a former environmental health safety officer and author of Cold, Clear and Deadly, a book that details the legacy of Great Lakes contaminants. The insecticide has been shown to damage the immune system, nervous system, lungs and cause cancer.

Echo

Great Lakes or great sink? Pollutants produced abroad and still circulating at home threaten water quality

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By Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo 4/22/09
Indian cement plants, Russian incinerators and Chinese farms send large amounts of persistent pollutants to the Great Lakes. The continued expulsion of these toxins pose serious environmental and health problems for all countries, including those who have long since banned these chemicals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Climate change may further complicate the issue. As countries like China develop, they are not only becoming the largest emitters of carbon dioxide but of persistent organic pollutants or POPs, according to the International POPs Elimination Network. These chemicals drift into the atmosphere or fall to the surface to evaporate.