Environment & Science

Earlier this week, I posted on the power of Google's "Earth Engine," an online tool that lets you fly back in time and space to see how land has changed.

That huge pile of petroleum coke lying alongside the Detroit River is triggering a growing sense of alarm. 

You may recall, we spoke with New York Times journalist Ian Austen about the origins of this mountain of "pet coke" that's growing in Southwest Detroit. It's a byproduct of tar sands oil refining used in energy production. When mixed with coal, it can be used as a low-cost fuel.

The piles are being brought in by trucks from the Marathon Petroleum Refinery in southwest Detroit, and the pet coke is being stored by a company called Detroit Bulk Storage for the owner of the pet coke: Koch Carbon.

U.S. Congressmen John Conyers and Gary Peters and others have been voicing concern about the health and environmental risks of storing these piles of pet coke. We wanted to take a closer look at these concerns.

Nick Schroeck is a professor of law at Wayne State University in Detroit and the executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, and he joined us today to discuss the issue.

Listen to the full interview above.

The Associated Press reports that a derecho could create several storms in the Midwest with wind gusts reaching close to 100 mph:

The National Weather Service says derechos occur once or twice a year in the central U.S. with winds of at least 75 mph. The storms maintain their intensity for hours as they sweep across vast distances, and can trigger tornadoes and large hail.

Meteorologists project possible derechos in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh metro areas.

A new study in the American Journal of Health Behavior found if you walk or bike to work, you might be putting some subtle peer pressure on people around you.

Melissa Bopp is an assistant professor at Penn State University. She recently surveyed more than 1,200 people about their commuting habits.

“We discovered that people who had a spouse who actively traveled to work and had a coworker who actively travels to work were much more likely to actively travel to work themselves,” she says.

There are new reports that expect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to climb nearly two feet this summer.

One comes from the Army Corps of Engineers, which projects lake levels to rise by 20 inches. 

Al Steinman is the Director of the Annis Water Resources Institute at Grand Valley State University. 

Steinman attributed much of the rising water levels to significant rain this spring. 

"We've risen eight inches since April."

New research finds men are dirtier than women, but not by much.

Health officials say that washing your hands is the best thing you can do to avoid getting sick.

When it comes to putting that into practice, studies have found that a lot of us say we do a good job, but researchers found most of us don’t do anywhere near as good a job as we should.

Carl Borchgrevink is an associate professor in the School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University.

“We found that people do not wash their hands as much as they should… or to be blunt… there’s a lot of dirty hands out there,” he says.