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 Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians have filed a motion to join Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Ohio in a federal case that charges the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is not doing enough to keep the invasive carp from migrating into the Great Lakes.
Uppermichiganssource.com reports that the tribe wants to join the lawsuit because of the central role that fishing has played in the spiritual and cultural framework of Native American life.
In their motion to join the suit the tribe wrote:
Not only are the Great Lakes fish culturally important to the Tribes, these communities depend upon fisheries resources for their livelihoods. Moreover, by virtue of the supremacy clause (Article VI, clause 2) of the Constitution, Indian Tribes have a property right in treaty-reserved fishery resources that is paramount to the other economic interests cited by Defendants in defense of the relief requested by Plaintiffs.
According to the Michigan attorney general’s office the lawsuit calls for the Corps to use all available means to block Asian carp migration into Lake Michigan, including.
Use block nets, other physical barriers and fish poison at locations to block or kill Asian carp that have already swam through the O’Brien lock, dangerously close to Lake Michigan;
Install and maintain block nets and other physical barriers in the Little Calumet River, where no barrier of any kind currently exists;
Temporarily close the O’Brien and Chicago Locks;
Install and maintain screens on sluice gates at the O’Brien Lock, the Chicago River Controlling Works and the Wilmette Pumping Station to reduce the risk of fish passage when gates are open; and
Accelerate efforts to complete a feasibility study of a permanent hydrological separation of the Great Lakes Basin from the Mississippi River within the next 18 months, with reports at six and 12 months.
Judge Robert M. Dow Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is expected to begin hearing testimony in the case next week.
Invasive Asian carp are thought to pose a threat to Great Lakes fisheries. Recently a live bighead carp was caught in Lake Calumet, beyond the barriers intended to keep the fish from Lake Michigan.
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