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.
Environmental groups that have been seeking to block construction of the Fermi 3 nuclear reactor planned by DTE Energy have asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board to suspend licensing activity for the plant because of quality assurance problems identified by the NRC.
Plans to create a long-term high-level nuclear waste storage site along Lake Erie at DTE Energy’s Fermi power-generating complex in Monroe County have triggered safety concerns by area residents who warn that the spent fuel could be vulnerable to accident or attack. So far federal regulators have dismissed their calls for enhanced oversight.
The board that oversees the licensing of nuclear power plants has ordered a hearing on concerns raised by opponents of a new reactor planned by DTE Energy. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled July 31 that four of the concerns raised by environmental groups and people who live near DTE energy’s Fermi complex in Monroe County warrant further examination.
Construction of a new nuclear power plant in Michigan could cost the state jobs, according to Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner who toured the state last month.
“No state has ever succeeded in improving its jobs picture by building unnecessarily expensive power plants,“ he said in a phone interview. “The reason is the impact of high rate on the customers in commercial and industrial class.”
It looks like those who have concerns about the permitting process for the proposed Fermi 3 nuclear power station are facing an uphill battle to have their worries considered by federal regulatory officials. A coalition that includes Monroe County residents and nuclear watchdog groups has put together 15 environmental and safety concerns they’d like to discuss as part of an upcoming Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearing on the plan to expand DTE Energy’s Fermi nuclear complex in Frenchtown Township. But in order for these issues to be raised at the May 5 hearing, they must be approved by the ASLB. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and DTE Energy are urging the board to disregard virtually all of the coalition’s concerns.
An incident involving a nuclear reactor going into “hot shutdown” at DTE Energy’s Fermi II power generation station in Monroe County late last month went largely unnoticed locally and is raising questions about what exactly happened at the plant. DTE officials have minimized the incident, stressing that it’s dangerous to make assumptions about the safety of the reactor following the situation where high vibrations from a bearing in the plant’s main turbine caused operators to manually switch the reactor into shutdown.
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula will be expanded by 11,000 acres and the Keweenaw National Historic Park will get funds to expand presentations on copper mining once President Obama signs the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 which was passed by Congress this week. The bill, which will expand public lands [...]
Coalition cites Michigan Messenger’s reporting in analysis of health concerns; state health official responds, promises to investigate cancer pattern in Monroe County
State health report shows 31 percent increase in cancer rate among young people in Monroe County since 1996
As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission begins a public comment period on the permit application for a new reactor at the DTE Energy’s Fermi complex in Monroe, a public health expert is warning that a rise in cancer rates in Monroe County appears to be linked to operations at the existing 1,130 megawatt nuclear reactor.
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