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.
Factory farms in Michigan now produce as much waste as 60 million people, according to data released today by the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
According to the group’s analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture Census data the average size of an industrial egg-laying operation in Michigan nearly tripled to more than 875,000 hens between 1997 and 2007. The number of cows at industrial diary operations in Michigan grew from 35,000 to 149,900 during that time frame.
Food and Water Watch released an interactive map that illustrates factory farm operations by county.
“With Senator Stabenow stepping up to chair the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, the time has come for the state of Michigan to take the lead in rebuilding our nation’s broken food system,” Food & Water Watch Central Region Organizing Director Alex Beauchamp said in a statement. “We hope that the Factory Farm Map will inspire those in Michigan to learn more about where their food comes from and to take action to ensure that consumers everywhere have access to safe, healthy, affordable food.”
The expansion of factory farming in Michigan has come with its fair share of environmental problems. In addition to the state’s many dairy cows, the 871,000 hogs, nearly 75,000 beef cattle, 8.8 million egg-laying hens and 168,000 broiler chickens on factory farms in Michigan produce as much untreated waste as 60 million people. In 2009, as many as 200,000 fish were killed in a 12-mile length of the Black River in Sanilac County, Michigan after dairy manure was improperly spread on fields. That same year, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality filed suit against Vreba-Hoff Dairy for hundreds of alleged permit violations for failing to adequately treat all manure generated by the company’s two dairy operations.
A recent study from the Center for Aquatic Microbial Ecology at Eastern Michigan University found lowered water quality and an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria downstream from factory farms in Michigan.
Last week I reported that environmental groups are concerned that Governor-elect Rick Snyder’s choice of former Dept. of Agriculture Director Dan Wyant to lead the Dept. of Environmental Quality may signal a weakening of environmental enforcement at factory farms. As Agriculture Director Wyant opposed requiring permits at factory farms or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
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