Environment & Science

Researchers have found in a 30-year period, 130 square miles of farmland or natural areas were developed in southeast Michigan.

335,000 new buildings were built in the seven county area of Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne between 1985 and 2015.

Legislation soon will be introduced in Michigan to ban food packaging that contains toxic chemicals such as PFAS, bisphenols, or phthalates.

Some restaurants stopped using packaging containing PFAS, but some of the biggest chains still do.

State Senator Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) says it’s time to stop.

Michigan’s new PFAS drinking water standards went into effect this week. The restrictions include seven more common chemicals from the PFAS family. Michigan's regulations are among the strictest in the U.S.

Liesl Clark is the Director of the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. She says the state continues to search for the sources of the toxic chemicals in the state. Recently 38 new contaminated sites were identified.

Some Detroit residents and environmental justice groups have filed a civil rights complaint against the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. The complaint alleges the environment agency discriminates against people of color by approving requests for hazardous wastes sites near their communities.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office will not appeal a court decision which would allow a tunnel to be constructed beneath the Straits of Mackinac to house a replacement for the aging Enbridge Line 5 twin pipelines.

The tunnel was supported by former Governor Rick Snyder and the Republican led legislature to house a replacement for the aging twin pipelines called Line 5 operated by Enbridge.

A report this week from the U.S. government found coal consumption in 2019 was the lowest it’s been since 1978. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, electricity demand is down even more this year, and some utilities are shutting down their more expensive-to-operate coal-burning power plants.

Michigan’s two largest power companies, Consumers Energy and DTE Energy already have shuttered some coal-fired plants.

The state and the Marathon refinery in southwest Detroit have a proposed deal to resolve some alleged air violations from back in 2017.

Nick Assendelft is a spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

“Those are things for such as exceeding particulate matter and other emissions, emitting nuisance odors on multiple occasions,” said Assendelft.

The proposed Consent Order means Marathon has to fix the air quality problems, plus pay a fine.

State wildlife officials say the wolf population in the Upper Peninsula remains “healthy and stable.”

The Department of Natural Resources completed its biennial wolf survey between December and March.

Last summer, Michigan saw its biggest recorded outbreak of Eastern Equine Encephalitis, or EEE. There were ten confirmed cases of the mosquito-borne virus in humans and five deaths. Could another EEE outbreak be on the horizon this year? Public health officials say it’s tough to tell.

Ann Arbor City Council members have voted unanimously to award the non-profit Recycle Ann Arbor a 10-year contract to run the city’s materials recovery facility.

The facility hasn’t sorted recyclables since 2016, when it was shut down for unsafe working conditions. 

Recycle Ann Arbor will raise and invest more than $5 million to upgrade the facility with high-tech machines like optic sorters and ballistic separators, says Bryan Ukena, the company’s CEO. 

Lakes Michigan and Huron have been at record levels for each month so far this year. But water levels are expected to decline before they reach the all-time high water mark.

Great Lakes water levels fluctuate throughout the year, so the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tracks records for each month.

A seismometer is a device that’s usually used to measure earthquakes using vibrations in the earth. But recently, researchers have been using them to measure human movement. A global study shows that seismic noise is at an all time low, as a result of COVID-19 related lockdowns.

Enbridge says damage that prompted the temporary shutdown of its underwater oil pipelines in a Great Lakes channel may have been done by vessels working for the company.

Ten years ago, Enbridge Energy’s pipeline 6B split open near Marshall, Michigan. The EPA estimated more than a million gallons of oil spilled into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. It was the biggest oil spill into an inland waterway in U.S. history.

Michigan Radio was on the ground that first week, and over the past decade, we have reported on the environmental ramifications and legal challenges that resulted from the spill.

A new report looks at some of the most polluted beaches in Michigan. In 2019, several dozen of Michigan’s beaches tested were unsafe at one point or another.

While pollution from sewage and livestock farms on Michigan’s beaches has been getting better over the last couple of decades, recently, tests show a dip in progress. 

The state of Michigan wants Enbridge to promise it will cover costs from a potential oil spill in the channel that links two of the Great Lakes. Department of Natural Resources Director Dan Eichenger made the request Friday in a letter to the Canadian company. An Enbridge subsidiary pledged in 2018 to set aside about $1.8 billion to deal with a worst-case spill from its Line 5 pipes in the Straits of Mackinac. But the state says the subsidiary doesn't have enough money to fulfill that promise, and it's not clear that the parent company is bound by the pledge.

For the first time in more than 20 years, there's a bright comet in the nighttime sky. Comet NEOWISE was discovered by a space probe in late March. But Kalamazoo Astronomical Society President Richard Bell says people can now see it after sunset.

"Just look below the 'Big Dipper,' between the 'Big Dipper' and the horizon, with binoculars probably first. You should be able to see it, so it should be an easy sight to see," he said. "But if it's nice and clear, you should be able to see the comet with no optical aid whatsoever, with just your eyes alone."

An environmental group says Nestle's water bottling operations in Osceola Township are drying up two creeks.

Peggy Case, President of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation says there are mud flats along parts of Twin and Chippewa Creeks, where people used to canoe.  She says surveys show that large trout are disappearing from the creeks.

"So at a time when the water is at high levels all over the state of Michigan -- drowning in water right now, rivers are high and lakes are high.  (But) Twin Creek and Chippewa Creek are not. They are quite low."

Michigan firefighters have new rules for when they use firefighting foam containing industrial chemicals known as PFAS.

Western Lake Erie is expected to see only a moderate bloom of cyanobacteria this summer. The cyanobacteria can produce toxins that are harmful for people and pets.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and regional institutions predict the 2020 summer cyanobacterial bloom will be among the smallest since 2011.

A new study by University of Michigan researchers finds climate change may help Asian carp overcome another invasive species to gain a foothold in the Great Lakes.

The study looks at how three factors (climate change, nutrient management, and invasive mussels) have affected Lake Michigan's vulnerability to bighead and silver carp.  

A campaign to outlaw a controversial method of extracting oil and natural gas from the earth is asking a judge to strike down a Michigan election law. The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is challenging the 180-day limit on signature-gathering. The group also wants a judge to set a deadline of July 26 for the state to act.

State environmental officials say tests along the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers are not showing recent floods caused dioxin and other contamination to spread.

In May, heavy rains and dam failures created a 500-year-flood in Midland County, including areas with histories of contamination from Dow Chemical.