I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Hundreds turned out in East Lansing on Monday night to hear details of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plan to spend $475 million to clean up the Great Lakes. Great Lakes Echo reports that the main citizen requests were that the public be included in the plan and that there be more outreach aimed at getting people to understand how their actions affect the lakes.
Great Lakes blogger Dave Dempsey has been following the process around the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and has also raised concerns about public involvement in the project.
[G]iven that to date, most of the speakers and attendees at meetings on the proposed $475 million Great Lakes plan have reportedly been people paid to advocate on the Great Lakes or people paid by those who are regulated by Great Lakes agencies, one has to wonder how and whether “the public” will actually participate in the funded recovery of the Lakes.
What’s Dempsey’s preference for what to do with the money?
My bias: pick a couple of major and visible problems to tackle and show significant progress on them in the first year. No studies, please.
Show some guts, too, in going after the politically powerful sources of pollution that litter the Lakes with invasive species, excess phosphorus, toxic chemicals, and other contributors to their decay.
Information about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is here, and the EPA is taking comments on the program here. The deadline for comments is Aug. 19.
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