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 state’s new Department of Natural Resources and Environment is holding a public hearing tonight on permits for a 22 mile long road that has been proposed by Kennecott Eagle Minerals which plans a nickel sulfide mine on the Yellow Dog plain northwest of Marquette.
The road is designed to accommodate trucks that will haul ore from the Eagle Rock mine to the Humboldt processing mill and would cross one of the state’s last large wilderness areas.
In reviews of the road project last year staff the DNR’s Fisheries and Wildlife Divisions raised concerns about the likely environmental impacts of the project.
The Wildlife Division warned that new roads increase habitat fragmentation, lead to more road building, disrupt groundwater flow and generate noise that harms avian populations.
Wildlife Division staff also warned of:
Increase in wildlife mortality and public safety concerns due to vehicular impacts with species such as wolf, bear, deer, and moose, especially since this area has some of the highest moose densities in the Upper Peninsula
[Wild Life Division] feels that this [project] is counterproductive to the mission of the DNR Wildlife Division which is: “To enhance, restore, and conserve the State’s wildlife resources, natural communities, and ecosystems for the benefit of Michigan’s Citizens, visitors, and future generations.”
Wildlife staff also noted that the area where Kennecott plans to build the road has thick patches of blueberries which attract visitors from all over the area.
Staff from the Fisheries Division wrote:
Use and maintenance of roads contributes several chemical pollutants to the aquatic environment, including heavy metals and salts … These pollutants are carried to streams where they accumulate in sediments and biota and often move downstream for considerable distances … Additionally, the risk of toxic chemical spills is increased at road-stream crossings. … [A]ccidental releases during transportation of hazardous materials occur frequently and are especially damaging to rare species or species with complex life histories, such as freshwater mussels.
Both the Wildlife and Fisheries Divisions noted that other less disruptive routes could be used to haul ore to the company’s processing facility.
Cynthia Pryor of the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve said that she is concerned that the decision on whether to OK the road will be made by one DNRE staffer in the Gwinn office.
The Kennecott mining project is a large and highly contentious project in this small community, and Pryor said that she does not think it’s fair for one person to be tasked with such a big decision.
“This person is under a lot of pressure,” she said.
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