Lindsey Smith

Review team finds 'financial emergency' exists, again, in Hamtramck

Lindsey Smith — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:40:10 +0000

An independent review team says the city of Hamtramck is indeed dealing with a “financial emergency.” The small city takes up about two square miles within the city of Detroit.

Hamtramck just emerged from the control of an emergency financial manager six years ago. Now its deficit is $3.3 million. That’s 20 percent of the money the city expects to bring in this fiscal year.

Despite state takeover, special education problems linger for Muskegon Heights schools

Lindsey Smith — Thu, 23 May 2013 11:30:28 +0000

New reports show special education students in Muskegon Heights didn’t get all the services they should have this year. The company that runs the state’s first all-charter public school district is working to correct the problems.

Problems with charter company’s handling of special ed services

Federal law and state regulations outline the rules that are supposed to make sure kids with special needs still get a fair education.

Michigan’s Department of Education found more than a dozen ways the new Muskegon Heights charter district violated those rules, affecting a couple hundred special education students.

“In my opinion this was probably the worst delivery of special education services I’ve seen in my career,” said Norm Kittleson, a former special education teacher at Muskegon Heights. He’s been teaching for 15 years.

Kittleson started teaching a small class of students with learning disabilities and emotional issues at Muskegon Heights last October.

Kalamazoo rallies to pressure EPA to remove hazardous paper mill waste

Lindsey Smith — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:33:12 +0000

More than a hundred people, a dozen strollers and a few dogs lined up and marched about halfway around the Allied landfill site in Kalamazoo Wednesday night chanting – “What do we want? Cleanup! When do we want it? Now!”

It isn’t a typical landfill. It’s where a paper mill dumped decades-worth of waste that’s laced with cancer-causing chemicals.

Everyone here wants the pile gone. They don’t care if it’s the most expensive option and the company that owned the site went bankrupt.

Residents, regulators, activists and plant workers mingle at Palisades’ open house

Lindsey Smith — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:17:01 +0000

Even though Palisades is temporarily shut down, the nuclear power plant last night held a public open house it had scheduled more than a month ago.

In a small conference center in South Haven Tuesday night, anti-nuclear activists mingled with federal nuclear regulators, residents, and plant workers. Palisades Site Vice President Tony Vitale says that's a good thing. He says the open house is designed for people in the community to come talk to some of the plant workers firsthand.

“We’re not hiding anything. We want to run, and will run, and I will demand we run a transparent operation,” Vitale said.

Palisades closer to solving leaky tank issues, Upton says he’ll return before plant reopens

Lindsey Smith — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:41:30 +0000

Crews are still trying to figure out exactly what caused an unplanned release of slightly radioactive water from the Palisades Nuclear Plant last week. They have discovered a new crack in a water tank that’s been leaking on and off for at least two years.

The plant was shut down a little over a week ago because of the leak.

“The risk to the plant safety was very small. There really was no increased risk,” Palisades Chief Operating Officer Tim Mitchell told reporters Monday afternoon.

Kalamazoo residents struggle with EPA over "Mount PCB"

Lindsey Smith — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:11:14 +0000

People in Kalamazoo are rallying to get rid of a major dump site that contains cancer causing waste.

Imagine decades’ worth of wood pulp and grey clay waste from the paper mill industry. There are 1.5 million cubic yards of it and it’s laced with polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs.

Now, plop it in the middle of a neighborhood.

Sarah Hill lives a little more than a mile away from what neighbors have dubbed "Mount PCB."

New partnership should give a boost to Grand River rapids restoration project

Lindsey Smith — Fri, 10 May 2013 22:30:13 +0000

An effort to restore the rapids into the Grand River is getting a boost from a new federal partnership.

The rapids that gave Michigan’s second largest city its name are long gone. Hydraulic dams that used to power the furniture industry are major safety hazards for small boats and kayaks. They also block fish like sturgeon from spawning upstream.

Citing public pressure, U.S. State Department extends comment period on Enbridge pipeline proposal

Lindsey Smith — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:27:18 +0000

The U.S. State Department has extended the public comment period on a proposal to nearly double the amount of crude oil that's shipped in a pipeline along Lake Superior.

Enbridge Energy’s Line 67, also known as the “Alberta Clipper” pipeline, runs from the tar sands region in Canada down to Wisconsin near Lake Superior. In the US, it's more than 300 miles long and three feet in diameter.

On second take, Benton Harbor voters approve “vital” operating millages

Lindsey Smith — Wed, 08 May 2013 02:31:57 +0000

People in Benton Harbor voted overwhelmingly to raise property taxes to support city services in Tuesday’s election.

That’s after voters rejected a similar set of proposals last November. The city is already running in the red and the millage represents around 20-percent of the city’s income.

“You just can’t see me dancing in the streets on the radio,” Mayor James Hightower said over the phone Tuesday night, “It’s a great day in Benton Harbor.”

Palisades leak angers Congressman Upton; new documents show alternative fix for leaky tank

Lindsey Smith — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:52:01 +0000

A powerful voice in Washington is demanding a permanent fix to the leaky water tank at the Palisades Nuclear Plant.

Congressman Fred Upton says he’s “outraged” by the unplanned release of slightly radioactive water into Lake Michigan over the weekend. Regulators say there is no risk to public safety.

Upton chairs the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over domestic nuclear regulatory activities.

The plant is in Congressman Upton’s district. Entergy, the company that owns the plant, was one of the top contributors to his election campaign last year.

Upton is demanding accountability and a permanent fix to the tank, which has leaked on and off for at least two years.

In a written statement, Upton says he plans to personally visit the site with a Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner.

“It is my understanding that the water tank will be emptied by the end of the week with the hope that the cause of the leak can be identified shortly thereafter. Every option must be on the table – including a full replacement of the tank – to ensure that the continuing leak will not occur again,” Upton said.

Requests for an interview were not immediately returned.

New documents show Entergy had asked regulators for an alternative fix for the leaky tank on April 25^th. Those documents assumed the leaks had stabilized.

“The current leak rate is stable without an increasing trend which suggests that the current through wall flaws have self-relieved the initiating stresses, are not growing, and remain well below the calculated allowable flaw length.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating why the leak rate went from one gallon per day late last week to 90 gallons a day in one 24-hour period.

In the documents, Entergy requests an alternative fix for the tank “that would add a fiberglass-reinforced vinyl ester liner to the tank bottom and to a portion of the tank wall in lieu of identifying the location of the thru-wallleak(s) and performing code compliant repairs.”

Palisades shutdown comes after assumed ‘unplanned’ release of radioactive water into Lake Michigan

Lindsey Smith — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:18:46 +0000

Update 4:14 p.m.

“The most important thing to understand regarding this shutdown is the health and safety of our employees and the public has never been impacted by this issue,” said Terry Young, Vice President of Nuclear Communications for Entergy.

He confirms the unplanned release of slightly radioactive water into Lake Michigan, but couldn’t say exactly how much.

“It’s really impossible to tell at this juncture what the length of this shutdown will be because we haven’t yet had a chance to identify what the issue is that we’re going to need to fix,” Young said.

This will be the third attempt to fix the leaky tank within the last year and a half.

“We have gone through pretty exhaustive measures on a couple of occasions to bring the plant offline and do just extensive testing and repairs and we’ll take a look at what’s causing the leak this time,” Young said.

I asked if it would make more sense to replace the tank instead.

“I really don’t know any background information on that in terms of what that would cost, I honestly couldn’t comment on that,” Young said.

Young notes the plant has had “a lot of success” at Palisades in the year and a half in “significantly improving performance.” The NRC recently upgraded the plant's safety rating after a series of problems in 2011 left it with one of the worst safety performance ratings in the country.

Last month Site Vice President Tony Vitale noted that a number of issues “have required repairs to be done with the plant offline and that’s unacceptable.” He says they’re reviewing their procedures to see if there’s something they should change.

“We’re diving into our programs and finding out why these issues are finding us instead of us finding them,” Vitale said in April.

“It is unfortunate that this is a recurrent issue that we are dealing with here,” Young said, “but our resolve is strong to fix this issue once and for all.”

Updated 1:11 p.m.

Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimate 79 gallons of "slightly" radioactive water drained into Lake Michigan on Saturday.

NRC Spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng says the agency doesn’t know exactly how radioactive the water was, but based on general knowledge of where the water came from, there is no risk to public safety.

“The unplanned release of this radioactive water is not something you want to have happen,” Mitlyng added.

The water came from a large water tank on the roof of the Palisades plant’s control room. It holds 300,000 gallons of water in case of emergencies or a planned refueling outage.

The plant is located in Covert Township, about 70 miles southwest of Grand Rapids.

Police beefing up security for 36th annual 5th/3rd River Bank Run in Grand Rapids

Lindsey Smith — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:29:36 +0000

“This year, by far, will be the largest security force that we’ve had for a 5^th/3^rd River Bank run to date,” Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk told city commissioners Tuesday.

21,000 runners are registered for the race.

He’s coordinating security with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and five police forces from neighboring communities.

Belk says Michigan State Police will fly helicopters overhead and use bomb-sniffing canine units

Smoking or possessing pot in Grand Rapids now 'decriminalized'

Lindsey Smith — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:04:20 +0000

Nearly six months after Grand Rapids voters passed a charter amendment to decriminalize marijuana, the city is implementing the change this week. You can read the rules here.

The delay comes in part because the Kent County prosecutor sued the city when it tried to implement the change in December.

Grand Rapids students tell policy makers what they want from school

Lindsey Smith — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:25:56 +0000

There are plenty of adults talking about what should be done concerning education in Michigan. But an event in Grand Rapids gave students an opportunity to explain what they need from their schools.

Lynn Heemstra helped organize the event, called “KidSpeak.”

“It’s my belief that a lot of people that have legislative responsibility don’t really know the extent of what young people are dealing with in the their lives and what they’re receiving in the way of day to day educational opportunities,” Heemstra said.

More than 1,000 still displaced after record setting Grand River flood

Lindsey Smith — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:05:20 +0000

Thousands of people affected by a record flood of the Grand River are still coming to terms with the losses. Today the river is expected to finally dip below the flood stage in Grand Rapids.

Flood comes strong and fast

The flood got real a week ago today. On Thursday, April 18^th, more than three inches of rain fell in one day, blowing away the 1939 record of a mere inch and a half.