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.
A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists names Michigan, which generates more than 60 percent of its electricity from coal, as one of the nation’s most coal-dependent states. The group says that Michigan spent $1.36 billion on coal in 2008 and claims that residents would be better served if more money were spent [...]
Grand Rapids has been named the most sustainable midsized city in the nation by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Civic Leadership Center and the Siemens Corp. Despite Michigan’s manufacturing decline, the groups say, Grand Rapids is retooling by cleaning up contaminated former industrial sites and advancing a multi-organizational community-wide agreement on how to achieve sustainable [...]
After months of public hearings and intense debate Traverse City’s municipal utility decided to move ahead with plans to develop a wood-burning power plant, but plans for the new facility hit a serious hurdle this week when Traverse Light & Power learned that the plant could not be built at the utility’s preferred location because [...]
Despite growing public concern about its effect on the health of people and state forests, Traverse City Light & Power is moving forward with plans to build a wood-fired power plant.
In response to community opposition to plans to build wood-fired power plants in Traverse City the municipally owned power company held a series of forums last month to gather public input on how best to generate power. Traverse City Light and Power promised to analyze and publicly respond to community concerns before settling on a [...]
A northern Michigan entrepreneur plans to develop an operation in Manistee that will turn trees from the surrounding forests into pellets that could fuel power plants such as the wood-fired biomass plants planned in Mancelona and Traverse City, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reports. Jerry Dutcher, owner of Fireglow Wood Pellets, intends to locate a new [...]
Brownfields owned by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Baraga are being evaluated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy lab as possible locations for wind power projects. According to EPA any future wind power development would be used to support tribal commercial business development and other [...]
Traverse City’s municipal utility company is looking to increase its use of renewable sources of energy, but residents and experts question whether the use of biomass as an energy source is necessary or worth the negative effects that come with it.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment has issued an air permit for a 36 megawatt wood-fired power plant proposed in Mancelona by Mancelona Renewable Resources, a subsidiary of the natural gas and oil company Jordan Exploration. According to figures from the DNRE the Mancelona plant will release more particulate, more volatile organic compounds [...]
As the state government and energy companies push for using state forest land for wood burning power plants, some experts question the sustainability of such a practice and urge a broad public conversation about the possible alternatives.
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