Year in Review: Sour economy adds to Mich.’s environmental woes

Financial trouble pushed state and national leaders to suggest abandoning longstanding environmental programs this year and some even blamed air and water quality regulations for Michigan’s economic problems.

As the recession deepened, demand for electricity declined, and proposed coal power plants faced increasing scrutiny. The Obama administration declared the dioxin contamination from Dow Chemical’s Midland plant a threat to public health and promised to better regulate dioxin here and nationwide. In the state legislature, a new discussion began on how to protect Michigan waters from commercialization.

And as the large and hungry invasive Asian carp threatens to invade and dominate the Great Lakes, people are mobilizing to stop the aquatic invader with electricity, poison, lawsuits and massive public works projects.

Government restructuring and downsizing of environmental functions

In February, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced that the state could no longer afford the $2 million per year it spends on its wetland permitting program and that responsibility for protecting wetlands be turned over to the federal government.

The program receives only $2 million per year in general fund support.

Michigan, surrounded by water and uniquely rich in wetlands, led the nation in establishing its own system for protecting wetlands back in 1979. But funding for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has fallen so low in recent years that it has become difficult to carry out the program.

Environmental groups warned that over 900,000 acres of the state’s wetlands serve critical ecological functions yet would have no protection if the state’s program is turned over the federal government which has a more narrow definition of what constitutes a wetland.

The Michigan Association of Home Builders said that building projects could be harmed if the program were to be administered by the federal government because it would take longer to get permits.

Some politicians, including House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Township) and Republican Attorney General Mike Cox described the DEQ permitting programs as hostile to business.

In the end, and after months of negotiations with the Farm Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce and conservation organizations, a deal was brokered to save the state’s wetland permitting program. But the compromise included measures that will excuse many projects from review, as well as industry-specific mandates such as a rule that the DEQ must identify land suitable for cranberry cultivation.

As state environmental programs continue to be starved of funds more fights over environmental regulation are expected.

Energy use declines and coal power faces new obstacles

Michigan gets most of its electricity from coal although coal power plants are the biggest emitters of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and are responsible for mercury contamination in water. As 2009 began, several new coal power plants were in the planning phase but as the year progressed a boom in coal plant building seemed less and less likely. There was increasing coverage of the rising cost of building coal plants, and the ecological risks of emissions and waste ash.

In February, the governor ordered the DEQ to assess whether coal plant expansion is necessary and prudent when evaluating permit applications.

In May, LS Power announced that it was suspending plans to build a new 750-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Midland.

Northern Michigan University in Marquette got initial approval for a 10-megawatt coal-fired plant but withdrew its permit application in June and submitted a new plan to generate electricity by burning wood.

In September, the Michigan Public Service Commission revised its estimate of how much energy was needed by Michigan and declared that no new generating capacity would be needed until 2020.

Now, Michigan is seeing a new investment in natural gas, with plans for wind power and wood-based fuels under development.

Dow dioxin contamination draws new promises from feds

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took on a new role negotiating with Dow Chemical over its dioxin contamination that’s spread thorough the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and into Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay.

Shortly after taking office, EPA Director Lisa Jackson officially recognized the area’s dioxin contamination as a threat to public health and sent top officials to Michigan to meet with concerned groups and negotiate an end to decades of stalling on clean up.

Under pressure from EPA, Dow paid for clean up of a few highly contaminated spots, and funded state fish advisory signs. EPA agreed to monitor the water supplies of Saginaw, Bay City and Midland to ensure that dredging does not cause dioxin contamination.

The agency has now negotiated the beginnings of a new cleanup strategy with Dow, and has promised to release strengthened dioxin cleanup guidelines by the end of this month.

Emerging discussion of public trust

Few seem to be aware of it, but the state constitution says the natural resources should be protected in the public interest.

Some are trying to raise awareness of the concept.

State Rep. Dan Scripps (D-Leland) introduced legislation this summer to protect the state’s water from commercialization by affirming that groundwater is part of the public trust.

Supporters of the legislation say that it is necessary because the Great Lakes Compact enacted last year, though intended to prevent water diversions may set the stage for wider commercialization of water by allowing it to be treated as a commodity. Bottled water, for example, under the compact, may be freely shipped out of basin.

Invasive Asian carp

It’s not clear if the invasive Asian carp has reached Lake Michigan, but DNA from the fish was found last month just 8 miles away from the lake near Chicago and beyond a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-built electrical barrier that was supposed to block them.

The discovery prompted environmental officials to spray poisoning into a section of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in hopes of killing carp that may have breached the barrier.

The carp can grow to be four feet long and 100 pounds and could destroy native fish populations if they move into the Great Lakes.

This month, Attorney General Mike Cox asked the U.S. Supreme Court to order the closure of the locks that connect the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to the Great Lakes.