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.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality announced on Wednesday that elevated levels of selenium below the tailings basin and waste rock piles of two mines operated by Cleveland Cliffs near Marquette in the Upper Peninsula could lead to reproductive failure in fish.
Selenium is an element that can leach from rock that is exposed to air and water, and can bioaccumulate in aquatic life and water dependent birds.
Steve Casey, district supervisor for the DEQ’s water bureau in the Upper Peninsula, said that the agency decided to study selenium levels in area water bodies after routine sampling revealed higher than expected levels.
Further sampling in lakes rivers and streams around the mine properties revealed levels of selenium that exceed levels allowed by the Clean Water Act.
Casey said the DEQ has advised directed Cleveland Cliffs to study sources and limit discharges.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to set a new standards for selenium in 2011.
The DEQ report states that environmental selenium contamination has caused fish and wildlife injury in and around United States surface waters and the some fish populations have been eliminated because of reproductive failures caused by selenium bioaccumulation.
“These losses have occurred with little evidence of toxicity because early life stages were impacted while adults appeared healthy,” the report states, and birds have also been affected.
“Birds have suffered gross teratogenic abnormalities and widespread reproductive failures. Bird populations were decimated in the early 1980s by [selenium] poisoning and reproductive failures at California’s Kesterson Wildlife Refuge (KWR). The KWR was eventually closed, partially buried, and declared a hazardous waste site.”
The report goes on to state that selenium can accumulate in fish tissue at levels high enough to be harmful to humans and that California, Idaho, Utah and West Virginia have responded to more severe instances of game fish contamination by issuing local selenium fish consumption advisories.
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