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How should Great Lakes cities tap their water wealth?
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Detroit and Milwaukee are luring businesses with water. Could it boost economies?
Can discounted water rates and investment in water technologies transform the region?
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Experts answer questions about the Great Lakes
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Inquisitive about the Great Lakes? Submit or tweet your questions and they could be answered by scientists or other experts. Specialists on board the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s research vessel Lake Guardian are exploring Lake Superior this week. They are answering questions about the Great Lakes submitted by the public through a form starting today. Individuals can alternatively tweet questions to @EPAresearch using the #LakeSci11 hashtag. The Great Lakes are hugely important for individuals in the Great Lakes basin but they are also a national treasure, said Melissa Anley-Mills, member of the science communication staff for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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Want to buy a Great Lakes lighthouse? Act now
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Bidding ends today for two of them.
Need more time to ponder new digs?
Here are a few more up for grabs.
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Crooks and cooking grease: Some dump it, others steal it
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It’s a crime in Great Lakes states to dump cooking grease.
It’s also foolish considering the value of leftover fat in the biofuels business.
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New program encourages sustainability in Great Lakes cities
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A new regional initiative encourages green energy use, economic development and water resource protection in more than 70 Great Lakes cities. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, a bi-national network of mayors promoting the region’s restoration, recently launched the Green Cities Transforming Towards Sustainability program. The program is supposed to protect water and coastal areas and promote low-carbon energy generation and green land use and building design. Officials hope green economic development stimulates local economies.
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NASA: Moon may have more water than the Great Lakes
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The fight to keep Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes isn’t just regional anymore. Things just got global, if not interplanetary. That’s because new NASA-funded research suggests that the amount of water locked up in Earth’s longtime orbital nemesis — the moon — could exceed the volume of the Great Lakes. So unless the region conserves every drop it can, I’ll have to listen to my grandkids prattle on about how “The Great Lakes were cool until their volume was marginalized by the discovery of hydroxyl indigenous to lunar apatite, a water-bearing mineral.” Lousy moon-brats.
Energy
Wood burning power plants picking up steam in Great Lakes states
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Some Great Lakes power companies are looking to biomass to lower their carbon footprint while keeping the lights on. But critics are leery of cutting down forests to power refrigerators and say biomass is only carbon neutral in a political sense.
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Shifting winds for Great Lakes energy; Minnesota leads way
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The first U.S. offshore wind project was approved last week off of the Massachusetts coast.
Could it encourage offshore wind production in the Great Lakes?
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Grants spotlight lighthouse projects
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Supporters of 10 Michigan lighthouses requested renovation grants from the Michigan Historic Preservation Office this year.
Funding for the Michigan Lighthouse Assistance program comes from the sale of specialty license plates. Michigan has 128 lighthouses, the most of any state.
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Friday Five: The grandma who stood up
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You know the big names credited with major policy decisions that affect the basin.
But who are the people behind the scenes who shape Great Lakes policy?
Our series ends this week with Sandy Bihn, western Lake Erie’s well-armed activist.