Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/echo/page/148/)
Disease clusters are complicated to confirm and challenging to investigate, as evidenced by recent confusion surrounding a suspected one in Muskegon County, Mich., that was reported recently by two national environmental organizations.
Focus remains on current, non-native residents in the Great Lakes, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did a “scientific census” of nonindigenous species looking to take up residence in the Great Lakes.
Michigan’s 2.7 million acres of national forest produce enough lumber each year to build around 18,000 average-sized houses and provide habitat to endangered species such as the bald eagle and osprey.
What started with 16 of the most ominous land-based (and some aquatic wildcard) invasive species has been whittled down to one champion:
The emerald ash borer, also known as, The Green Menace.
Michigan has five operating ethanol plants and two under construction.
But just what proportion of the state’s corn should be used to make ethanol?
Corn growers insist that criticism that biofuels will increase food prices is misplaced.
To submit an image to Great Lakes Echo Photo Friday, send your photo, a caption and your name to greatlakesecho@gmail.com.
Michigan’s travel agency is pushing the state’s natural resources in a bid for tourists.
Efforts are also underway to promote agri-tourism, including the use of mobile phone applications that direct tourists to markets.
By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason
Editor’s note: Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror is an ongoing Great Lakes Echo series. Four weeks ago 16 of the most troublesome terrestrial invasive species in the Great Lakes region took to the ring to find out which one readers thought was the worst. Plants entered land brawls facing mammals; birds took the sky to ward off insects. But now it’s time to make the final decision.
Proposed legislation could keep wind turbines out of the Great Lakes, and that’s good — or bad — depending on perspective.
Milwaukee built some of the region’s first sewers more than 130 years ago to carry untreated wastewater into rivers and the lake. Today the city is a national leader in reducing stormwater runoff.