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.
This week the Obama Administration announced $47 million in new projects aimed at keeping invasive Asian carp from migrating into the Great Lakes. The 2011 carp action plan calls for new biological controls and increased e-DNA monitoring but does not include closing the locks in the Chicago waterway system.
The Associated Press reports:
A $47 million battle plan for 2011 calls for refining technologies that detect the presence of Asian carp by identifying their DNA in water samples, and for developing better means of trapping, netting or starving carp already in waterways that lead to the lakes. It also pledges to continue initiatives begun this year, such as researching ways to prevent the unwanted fish from breeding.
“The ‘plan’ remains an unintegrated menu of disconnected potential actions, random activities, and no sense of what will be done with new evidence of carp on emergency or long-term basis,” Henry Henderson of the Natural Resources Defense Council told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel .”There is no articulated strategy, no sense of urgency, no apparent commitment to use the best tools such as (environmental) DNA to focus immediate action and build toward a permanent solution.”
“The extra efforts to control carp further downstream are good, but the Great Lakes remain at risk as long as the locks are open,“ Rep Dave Camp (R-MI) told Booth Mid-Michigan. “The only sure way to keep Asian carp out of the lakes is to close the locks and achieve permanent hydrological separation.”
Back in January Camp and other members of Michigan’s congressional delegation, sponsored legislation to require the shutdown of the locks but the measure never came up for a vote.
Legal efforts to shut the locks have been unsuccessful so far.
Earlier this month an Illinois federal court refused to order the closure of the locks in a lawsuit brought by Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.
This week Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox asked the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to review that ruling.
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