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 Detroit News reports on the many ways that the merger of the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality in Michigan has undermined environmental enforcement in the state and put our natural resources and the health of our citizens at risk.
Department of Natural Resources director Rebecca Humphries has been picked to lead the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment — the new department slated to form next week when the DNR and Department of Environmental Quality merge. The combination of the departments, described as a streamlining measure, was ordered last October in an executive [...]
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has approved the issuing of a permit to build a new coal-fired power plant in Hampton Township, near Bay City. The 830-megawatt plant will be owned by Consumers Energy, which has been seeking approval of the project for more than two years. As a condition of the permit, however, [...]
Upper Peninsula lawmakers are railing against a ballot measure to create standards for uranium mining, claiming that no uranium ore has been discovered in Michigan. However, a Canadian uranium mining company says it’s found uranium in the U.P., scientists have warned that its uranium exploration could harm groundwater, and the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department is warning that residential wells in several counties already have elevated levels of the radioactive metal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is concerned that Michigan’s inability to maintain its wetland permitting program could have negative impact on water resources, create confusion, and compromise federal stimulus projects that require permits, EPA Acting Regional Administrator Bharat Mathur wrote in a Sept. 3 letter to Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality Director Stephen Chester. If [...]
The wetlands program proposed by Republican State Sen. Patty Birkholz of Saugatuck Township last week would give the quasi governmental Michigan Economic Development Corporation a role in permit decisions, eliminate public hearings, and put the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to work scouting land for development by the cranberry industry, according to Great Lakes Blogger, [...]
The legislature hasn’t allocated any money for the state’s wetland program and the governor has recommended turning it over to the federal government, so with just over a month left in this fiscal year, the Department of Environmental Quality is preparing to lay off staff involved with protecting wetlands. DEQ spokesman Bob McCann said the [...]
GRAND RAPIDS — Lt. Gov. John Cherry, in a public gathering where about 45 participants got to vote on the value of the functions of state government, said that before elected officials undertake an effort to streamline or restructure state government, Michigan residents and officials need to understand what it is supposed to do.
Benton Harbor residents will need to pay $75 to view Lake Michigan from atop the dunes in the city’s lake front Jean Klock Park. WJSM news reports that a panel that oversees policy at the Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course now partially built in the public park has approved a fee schedule for use of [...]
Four months after Gov. Jennifer Granholm publicly tasked her No. 2, John Cherry, with leading an effort to streamline government, Michigan’s official unemployment rate has hit 14.1 percent, the state is undergoing the steepest decline in revenue in at least a half century, and the state legislature is moving ahead with plans to combine two departments, Natural Resources and Environmental Quality.
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