Echo

Lake politics: Low-hanging pinkos

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What do members of an international environmental group that has eight Great Lakes chapters have in common with a sweet, but communist fruit? Members of the local chapter of Waterkeeper Alliance are “watermelons: green on the outside and red or socialist on the inside,” said Maryland State Sen. Richard Colburn. Waterkeeper Alliance member Richard Dove, a retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel and a registered Republican responded in a press release:

“I understand that Sen. Colburn aligns himself with big agriculture and the commercial farms that keep him in office, but … having served tour tours of duty in Vietnam, I take it personally when someone calls me a Red, a socialist.”

Waterkeeper Alliance wants an apology from Colburn, whose personal Web site calls him a “shore senator.” Contacted this morning, Colburn staffer Lauren Elcik told Great Lakes Echo that the group had not contacted the senator for an apology. “Once we receive letters asking for an apology the senator will address it at that time,” Lauren Elcik said.

Echo

Toxic language

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I had to cringe a bit at this Echo headline on a link to a Toledo Blade story Monday: Homeowners are urged to have plan for toxins’ escape

The headline is taken directly from what the Blade copy editors wrote. It’s also wrong. The first sentence of the story:
“Countless shipments of toxic chemicals travel the highways and railways of metropolitan Toledo every day, but these chemicals often are ingredients in products that support Americans’ standard of living and conveniences, …” That’s fine, but the headline refers to toxins, not toxic chemicals. And toxins are poisonous substances produced by living cells or organisms. It’s a mix-up so common that here at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism we even cite it in a list of words often used incorrectly on the environment beat.

Echo

Lake politics: A new Great Lakes champion?

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The Great Lakes may have a strong new voice in Michigan State House Rep. Dan Scripps. The first-term Democrat has introduced legislation that he says would strengthen citizen protection of the state’s groundwater through the public trust doctrine. Check out this piece from The Great Lakes Town Hall’s Gary Wilson. It’s an engaging interview with Scripps, covering his political motivation, his legislation, why the Great Lakes Compact falls short, and a reaction to Chicago media criticism of Michigan’s carp response as being “hysterical.”

My favorite answer came when Scripps was asked whether or not environmental priorities should take a back seat to the economy. “This is a false choice given to us by the people who defend the status quo because it’s in their narrow self-interest to do so.

Echo

Daily carp bomb: The scales of justice

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In January, the Supreme Court denied Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox’s request to halt the incoming Asian carp by closing the shipping locks between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. That decision has come back to haunt them, according to today’s carp-flavored photobomb from the Conservation and Restoration Network. Based on their facial expressions, most of the justices seem happy to face their carp judgment. Except the stoic Justice Samuel Alito (standing, top left), who’s only missing a blindfold and cigarette. Where else will the carp sneak now that they’ve breached the electric barrier?

Echo

Let’s call the first two Britney and Brad

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As executive director of the Ohio River Sanitation Commission, Alan Vicory knows well the relentless march of the Asian carp up the Mississippi River and their invasion into his own domain. At a meeting of journalists in Louisville Friday he noted a similar but personal battle with moles, an aggressive invader of his own yard. The advice he was given about that problem?  “Name them and make them part of the family.” Vicory mused aloud about what he views as the inevitable result of the carp now knocking on the door of the Great Lakes:  “Maybe we should name these carp and make them part of the family,” he said. “They’re coming.”

Echo

New fronts open in carp battle

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For  weeks now, the media and politicians have been holding an intense spotlight on the Chicago locks as both the cause of and the cure for invasive species. Close the locks = Asian carp go away. Keep the locks open = Great Lakes are invaded. But this week, we are reminded that the invasive species battle has several fronts. And we’re not just talking about Echo’s carp bombs.

Echo

The EPA’s Great Lakes Action Plan: What’s changed since December?

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday released its final version of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Action Plan. The plan spells out the agency’s goals and benchmarks for fixing up the world’s largest freshwater system through 2014. The document updates a draft of the plan that was released in December and was open to public comment until Jan. 8. The EPA pulled the old version from its Web site, but since I had a copy sitting on my hard drive, I though I’d take a look at what’s changed.

Echo
League of Conservation Voters 2009 National Environmental Scorecard

League of Conservation Voters releases National Environmental Scorecard

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The League of Conservation Voters released its 2009 National Environmental Scorecard today, grading the 111th Congress’s votes on issues such as clean energy, public lands, water quality, forest management and chemical security. The political advocacy group has measured Congress’s eco-friendliness since 1970. Jonathan Oosting, over at MLive.com, examined the scores of Michigan politicos and found that Democrats earned higher marks than did Republicans in the first session. I asked a related question in a blog post on Feb. 15: “Which party do you think does the better job as an environmental protector?”

Check out the league’s scorecard yourself to see how your representatives stack up.

Echo

VIDEO: The Undead: Lightfoot and lazy journalism

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When I joined the Great Lakes Echo reporting staff as a recent Michigan transplant, my coworkers commonly derided me for a number of regional faux pas that were a product of my casual Great Plains parlance. They ranged from adding an “ACK” to Mackinac Island to pronouncing “Sault Ste. Marie” as something you may eat for dinner. But my ignorance of Gordon Lightfoot’s classic, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” – a song about the actual shipwreck in 1975 that left 29 bodies missing in Lake Superior – just made these natives angry. So after having listened to the song enough to inject some of Lightfoot’s drawl into my bone marrow, I’m sure I’m not the only one whose heart sunk like the Big Fitz last Thursday when social networking sites became abuzz with reports of the singer’s sudden death.

Echo

Catching carp quotes

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Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus continues to pull the best quotes out of the carp debate. Last week it was a retired steelworker pondering if bin Laden was behind the invasion. This week it’s Michigan  Congressman Vern Ehlers who apparently isn’t easing quietly into retirement:
“As soon as I can manage to drop a 150 pound carp on the rostrum of the Supreme Court then maybe we can get some action.”