Echo

Farmers defend Great Lakes crops from deer

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By Sarah Coefield
Coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 23, 2009

Countless deer descend on crops in the Great Lakes region, leaving in their wake torn corn silks, leafless soybeans, devastated orchards and millions of dollars in damage.  It’s a drop in the bucket for the agriculturally rich region but nonetheless painful for individual farmers. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s a minor amount, but it can be your entire crop,” said Paul Zimmerman, the public affairs executive director for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. While damage may be little noticed on large farms, it can be devastating for small operations where deer can quickly wipe out a field of young soybeans. “Welcome to raising crops in Mother Nature,” Zimmerman said.

Echo

County could ban urban phosphorus

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(MI) Battle Creek Enquirer – A countywide ban on phosphorus use on lawns would prevent unwanted algae growth within lakes and streams, said Christine Kosmowski and Cheryl Vosburg, representatives of the Lake Allegan/Kalamazoo River Watershed TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) Implementation Committee. Excessive algae chokes waterways by absorbing the oxygen that other plants and animals need to maintain a balanced ecosystem. It crowds out sporting fish, such as bass and trout, while making the water murky and clogged with weeds, Kosmowski said. More

Echo

Was paradise lost?

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Health care as we know it didn’t exist 3,000 years ago. But along the Georgia coast, the Pacific Northwest, and coastal Brazil, people grew tall and strong and lived relatively free of disease. They ate game, fish, shellfish and wild plants. But as corn farming spread through various regions of the Americas, people got shorter. Many became prone to anemia and began dying of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.More

Echo

Elders spread word on mercury contamination

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(WI) Indian Country Today – In olden days, Clarissa Welds, an elder of Lake Superior, as she calls herself, never worried about how many fish she ate. “It was the way of our ancestors. We were fisherman, and Mother Earth gave us what we needed to survive. We didn’t have to worry if the food was safe,” said the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians citizen. More

Energy

Met Council gets $1.1 million for gas hybrid electric buses

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(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Two green transit projects in Minnesota are among 43 nationwide receiving $100 million in funding from the Economic Recovery Act, the Obama administration announced Monday. About $1.1 million is going to the Metropolitan Council to replace diesel buses with gas hybrid electric buses in the Twin Cities area. More

Echo

Float down the Grand delivers a story

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(MI) Lansing State Journal – It’s been 16 years since then-Editorial Page Editor Mark Nixon’s battle cry for riverine improvement. And, to the credit of many, much has been done to improve Lansing’s river. But, as a recent, eye-opening boat tour along its downtown segment illustrates, there is still much to be done to make the Grand River all it could be. More

Echo

The wrong way to regulate carbon

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(MI) The Holland Sentinel – The most effective way for the United States to fight global warming is for Congress to put a price on carbon, either through a cap-and-trade system or, as we’d prefer, a carbon tax that rebates the revenue to taxpayers. But last month the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced a delay in introducing its climate change bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nev., said last week that such legislation might not be acted on until next year. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act. As Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., once warned, EPA action would create “a glorious mess” of regulation.

Echo

Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe puts plant researchers under glass

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – Visitors can study nearly 200 plant scientists in their natural habitat through the windows that line both sides of a main hall in the Chicago Botanic Garden’s gleaming new research center. Watching people watch things grow may seem a trifle mundane, but their work has far-reaching significance — preventing a “mass extinction” of plants over the next half-century. More

Echo

Utility defends rate proposal

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – We Energies says a lawsuit challenging the coal plants it is building in Oak Creek could be revived if regulators don’t authorize $5 million in funding for environmental initiatives as part of the utility’s rate increase proposal. The possibility of a renewed lawsuit was among several reasons the utility provided in a regulatory filing supporting its request for a 7% rate increase in 2010. More

Waste

Ann Arbor to revisit plastic shopping bag ban

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(MI) AnnArbor.com – A plastic shopping bag ban for the city’s largest retailers will be back before the Ann Arbor City Council tonight. If passed, the ordinance would bar retailers that have gross annual sales of more than $1 million from providing plastic bags. The ordinance doesn’t apply to the small plastic bags often available for produce at grocery stores. More