Environment

Court upholds $10,000 fine, restoration order in wetlands case

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Property owners who converted wetlands to a horse pasture without a state permit must restore the site and pay a $10,000 civil fine, the Court of Appeals has ruled. The three-judge appeals panel unanimously upheld a trial judge’s order that Hernan and Bethany Gomez remove 1.2 acres of fill material they illegally placed in a wetland on their 54-acre Livingston County parcel between 2005 and 2010. The Gomezes said they did it because they wanted to construct a “working ranch” with horses next to their new house. Wetlands are continuing to disappear in Michigan, according to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The state’s current 6.5 million acres of wetlands is down from 10.7 million acres before European settlement.

Business & Economy

Rescued food feeds the poor

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By KAREN HOPPER USHER
Capital News Service
LANSING — Trucks carrying some 40,000 tons of cherries will drop them off this month in Cadillac to fill food bank shelves in West Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. It’s part of a statewide effort to reduce food waste and put it to use feeding poor people. “The state is one of the winners when hunger comes off the table,” said Phil Knight, executive director of the Food Bank Council of Michigan. Flawed and ideal vegetables are held back from the grocer’s shelves and your dinner plate. Industry marketing agreements among growers mean some ideal or “type one” fruits and vegetables are not sold during years where the harvest is strong.

Parks & Recreation

Conservation in the Bat Zone

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By EAMON DEVLIN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Michigan – Bat-ter up! You can step up to the plate at the newly renovated Bat Zone in Bloomfield Hills. We’re not talking new batting cages at a fun park. This is North America’s only sanctuary and education center for bats and other nocturnal creatures.  It is run by the Organization for Bat Conservation at the Cranbrook Institute of Science.

Nonprofits & Social Services

Michigan prepares for Syrian refugees

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By ROHITHA EDARA
Capital News Service
LANSING — Michigan nonprofit organizations are preparing for an influx of Syrian refugees after the U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would stop them from entering the country. “We are expecting a new wave of refugees, especially that of Syrians,” said Ken Fouty, community outreach coordinator at Lutheran Social Services of Michigan based in Detroit. “We anticipate that it will happen in the summer.”
About 100 Syrian refugees were resettled by his organization in 2015. It is prepared to take about 300 more in response to the refugee crisis in Syria, he said. Michigan took in 180 refugees in total in 2015, said Erica Quealy, marketing specialist at  the  Department of Health and Human Services.