Environment

Debate continues on how to get the lead out – of ammo

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By BROOKE KANSIER
Capital News Service
LANSING – Hunting is killing Michigan wildlife – and not just in the way you think. It’s because a toxic metal – lead – has been a hunting staple for centuries. Despite being removed from products like paint, gasoline and pesticides, lead remains popular for shot and bullets due to its malleability and tendency to fracture, making for bigger wound tracks and faster kills. That fracturing has its downsides, however. Lead fragments in gut piles – left behind when hunters lighten the load to carry their kill out of the woods – can put wildlife at risk of ingesting remnants of the toxin, according to the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.

Energy

LNG-powered Great Lakes freighters could cut greenhouse emissions

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By: MORGAN LINN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Great Lakes shipping has the potential to go green. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) could replace oil as the fuel of choice for the freshwater ships, according to a recent study published by the Transportation Research Board. But conversion costs, declining fuel prices and processing capacity are barriers. To examine the feasibility of conversion, researchers studied the S.S. Badger, a coal-burning ferry that runs across Lake Michigan between Ludington and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. “It was a good platform for us to take a look at and model,” said Carol Wolosz, an author of the study and the executive director of the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute.

Environment

Court tosses elk farm’s damages suit against state

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – The owner of an elk breeding facility that was shut down during a year-long chronic wasting disease – CWD – quarantine waited too long to sue the state for damages, the Court of Appeals has ruled. Ranch Rheaume LLC in Memphis, St. Clair County, also failed to follow the proper procedures to pursue its claim against the state, the court said. The dispute is rooted in the August 2008 discovery of CWD in one whitetail at a deer-breeding facility in Kent County. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said it was the first such incident in Michigan.

Environment

Three contractors will pay $1 million in asbestos case

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Three people face possible prison terms after pleading guilty to illegally removing asbestos from a former Southwest Michigan power plant. They also agreed to reimburse the federal government for the approximately $1 million that the Environmental Protection Agency spent to clean up the contaminated facility in Kalamazoo County’s Comstock Township. Investigators believe the case “may be the largest asbestos release in Michigan since it was declared a hazardous air pollutant in 1971,” the U.S. Attorney’s office in Grand Rapids said. The trio’s illegal activity, spanning more than a year in 2011-12, imperiled the environment as well as the health of the public and laborers on the project, according to the EPA. Scientists have linked asbestos to serious health dangers such as lung cancer, mesothelioma, asbestosis and nonmalignant lung disorders.

Environment

Money coming to help erase winter’s damage in Northern Michigan

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By IAN K. KULLGREN
Capital News Service
LANSING — As winter approaches, the Michigan Economic Development Corp.(MEDC) is pouring an additional $1.6 million into the effort to assist communities still reeling from damages sustained during last year’s deep freeze, bringing the total to $7.6 million. The funds will partially reimburse more than 30 communities in the northern Lower and Upper peninsulas for repairing damaged roads and water mains, and to wrap up construction before the cold weather sets in. “It’s really the first time we’ve seen that scale,” said Lisa Pung, manager of the MEDC community assistance team. “There are some projects that are being addressed now and some that will have to extend into the winter and spring seasons.”

Marquette, for example, had 700 water main breaks last year at a cost of $1.7 million. The city received nearly $500,000 to mitigate infrastructure costs, in addition to $3,400 to Marquette County.

Environment

More trees, bushes planted to improve hunting grounds

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By IAN K. KULLGREN
Capital News Service
LANSING — The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is moving forward with plans to provide incentives to private landowners and launch other initiatives to restore hunting habitats. The programs, funded by recent increases to hunting and fishing license fees, are intended to rejuvenate land for hunting while maintaining a healthy game population. In the Upper Peninsula and Alpena area, for example, DNR officials are working with landowners to plant trees and small brush to lure deer to popular hunting areas, part of an effort to “create world-class hunting opportunities” in the state, according to the department. In the U.P., an estimated 22,000 trees and shrubs were planted last summer as part of that effort. The DNR’s Wildlife Division is pouring $50,000 into such efforts in the Northeast Lower Peninsula this year in response to complaints that quality hunting land is disappearing.

Environment

Judge OKs national forest land swap in the UP

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Rejecting objections by two environmental groups, a judge has cleared the way for the U.S. Forest Service to swap 240 scattered acres of federal land in parcels for a 421- acre piece of privately owned land in the Upper Peninsula bordering Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. U.S. District Judge Robert Bell ruled that the Forest Service had followed proper procedures in approving a controversial land exchange in Ottawa National Forest. It is the only Ottawa National Forest land swap to be challenged in court, said Ian Shackleford, the forest’s acting public affairs officer. Shackleford said the 421-acre area will be part of a management area that emphasizes “semi-primitive non-motorized recreation. Visitors can enjoy remoteness and solitude while visiting the area for hunting, camping, hiking or other activities.”
Ottawa National Forest covers about 1 million acres in the western U.P.
Two conservation organizations – Partners in Forestry Cooperative and Northwood Alliance – and seven individuals who use that part of the Ottawa sued to block the deal, arguing that the deal “will trade away old-growth, hemlock, cedar stands and related wildlife habitat and will remove from public ownership unique and rare geographic features, including Wildcat Falls, Scott and Howe Creek, bluffs and ledges and other special parts of the public lands.”
The land the Forest Service would get from owners Robert and Lisa Delich “offers little incentive to use, as the timber was recently cut very heavily and offers little in aesthetic value or other features to attract the public,” and “improper forestry practices had occurred,” the challengers’ lawsuit contends.

Environment

Some wastes would be reused, not landfilled, under bills

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By ASHLEY WEIGEL
Capital News Service
LANSING — Coal ash could be used in concrete, lime ash could be used for farming and copper sand could be made into shingles under legislation that would allow certain industries to sell byproducts that they now throw away. These byproducts can’t be used now because they are classified as hazardous materials that can potentially harm the environment. But recently introduced “beneficial reuse” legislation would provide parameters for testing their toxicity. If the byproducts passed the test, they could be sold and reused rather than sent to expensive landfills. The bills will be discussed in committee and possibly reported out on April 17.