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.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is criticizing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the time it is taking to consider license renewal applications from aging nuclear power plants.
The Pilgrim Power Plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Vermont Yankee Power Plant in Vernon, Vermont, have licenses that are set to expire in 2012 and have not received decisions on renewal applications submitted five years ago, he said.
“Today marks an unfortunate milestone for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the timeline for the reactor renewal process has now doubled without explanation, eclipsing 60 months with no end in sight for the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee plants,” Upton said in a statement. “With a dozen outstanding renewal applications, the alarming rate of delay has put thousands of good paying jobs in jeopardy and has threatened to disrupt a reliable source of clean, affordable energy for surrounding communities and businesses.”
In the case of Entergy-owned Vermont Yankee the delay is related to safety concerns.
In August 2007 decayed wooden beams at that plant resulted in the collapse of a cooling tower.
Last year it was discovered that the plant was leaking the radioactive isotope tritium into ground and surface water and the Vermont Senate voted against allowing the state regulators to issue the plant a state license.
Earlier this month Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin told the the Associated Press that Entergy is “a company we can’t trust.”
“The plant is old and leaking,” he said. “There’s no place to store the (radioactive) waste. The world has changed and we need to change with it. It’s time for it to sleep.”
Just this week Vermont Yankee announced that it had detected a new tritium leak.
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter