Environment

Fish may benefit from replacing culverts with bridges

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Replacing culverts with bridges may benefit fish because of improved connectivity of streams in a watershed, a pilot project in the Huron-Manistee National Forests shows. But doing so also creates risks of more pathways for invasive species to spread and of fine sediments that can smother fish spawning beds, a study by U.S. Forest Service and University of Notre Dame scientists cautioned. “These trade-offs need to be weighed on an individual basis,” said Nathan Evans, a doctoral student at Notre Dame and lead author of the study. “Each stream is different. The pros may outweigh the cons in one stream.

Business & Economy

Outdoor activities can boost tourism economy, influence Great Lakes restoration, study says

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By COLLEEN OTTE & ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Ecosystem assets in the Great Lakes region, such as sport fishing, boating, beach use, park visits and birding, contribute significantly to the tourism economy of shoreline communities and can help shape restoration priorities for the lakes, according to a new study that incorporates highly detailed maps. Such “cultural ecosystem services” are valuable to society and have “great potential for benefiting natural resource management and conservation,” it said. Those services or activities vary in where they take place, and so do stressors, threats, to the Great Lakes, said the lead author of the study, David Allan, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. He said, “There might be better decision-making afforded by our looking at both threats and benefits together instead of just identifying threats and trying to combat them.”
The study said the public takes advantage of recreational activities differently in each part of the region. For example, sport fishing is most popular on the U.S. side of lakes Erie and Ontario and in south-central Lake Michigan.

Environment

Canoeist denied Grand River shore access has no right to sue, court says

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — A nonprofit environmental group had the right to deny a canoeist access to its shoreline property to test for contamination in Grand River sediments near Jackson, the Court of Appeals has ruled. The three-judge panel unanimously rejected arguments by Peter Bormuth of Jackson that the Grand River Environmental Action Team — known as GREAT — had breached a fiduciary duty, meaning a duty of trust, with him. The Grand River, Michigan’s longest, flows westward for about 260 miles from its headwaters in Jackson County, through Lansing and Grand Rapids, before emptying into Lake Michigan at Grand Haven. Fifteen counties are in its watershed, including Ottawa, Montcalm, Mecosta and Kent. In March 2013, the state transferred the six-acre parcel in Blackman Township to GREAT, which intends to build a public boat launch there, according to court filings.

Agriculture

Deadline looms to remove private camps from Ottawa National Forest

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FORESTCAMPS
By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — With 104 long-time leaseholders seeking an extension of their right to keep hunting and vacation camps in the Ottawa National Forest, the Senate wants the federal government to grant them a reprieve. An extension also has backing from a Western Upper Peninsula filmmaker whose new documentary highlights the history and traditions of the camps and the dispute over their future. But the U.S. Forest Service says the law is clear that the leaseholders — who signed non-renewable 25-year agreements to abandon their one-acre lots by Jan. 1, 2017 — must leave. By then.

Environment

U.P. study shows long-term impact of beaver “engineering”

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — The North American beaver has been called “the quintessential ecosystem engineer,” and any doubters can look at the animal’s long-term environmental impact in the Upper Peninsula. Many of its engineering feats are still evident on the landscape after more than 150 years — longer than such other engineering marvels as the Eiffel Tower, the Mackinac Bridge, the Trans-Siberian Railroad and Toronto’s CN Tower have stood. The proof is visible in the continued existence of dozens of Ishpeming-area beaver ponds first mapped in 1868, according to newly published research. “This study shows remarkable consistency in beaver pond placement over the last 150 years, despite some land use changes that altered beaver habitats,” ecologist Carol Johnston wrote in the study. “This constancy is evidence of the beaver’s resilience and a reminder that beaver works have been altering the North American landscape for centuries.”
And in an interview, Johnston said a major lesson from the study is that beavers come back to the same spots on the landscape and reuse them time and time again.

Agriculture

U.P. water study boosts conservation efforts

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Research at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is shedding light on the critical environmental role that shallow seasonal woodland pools of water play in supporting wildlife, a new study shows. Those isolated pools — technically called “vernal pools” — face direct threats from development and indirect threats from climate change, invasive species, habitat fragmentation, contaminated water and groundwater extraction, according to the study by scientists from Michigan Technological University. And those threats carry important ecological implications because such pools provide “important sources of food and water for upland terrestrial species, including bats, reptiles, small mammals and birds” in the Upper Peninsula, the study said. Vernal pools are shallow depressions that fill in the spring or fall but are dry during the summer and drought periods. Few laws protect them, and they’re not covered by the federal Clean Water Act.

Agriculture

Criminal probes of Southwest Michigan farm fraud continue

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — A Southwest Michigan grain farmer has been sentenced to prison for cheating the federal government of almost $525,000 through fraudulent crop insurance claims and misuse of marketing assistance loans. U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney ordered Leonard “Lenny” Kolberg Jr., who owned Kolberg Farms in Bangor, Van Buren County, to serve a year and a day behind bars. He had faced a maximum potential sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Maloney also assessed $99,641 in restitution to the government, representing the unpaid loan balance. Court documents in the Kolberg case — some of them sealed — suggest a broader investigation into farm fraud is underway by the Inspector General’s Office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Diversity Issues

Retailers lose suit against Marathon

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Three small retailers in Southwest Detroit have lost their federal lawsuit that blames an oil refinery for killing their businesses and creating environmental hazards. U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan found no legal basis for claims against the refinery operator, Marathon Petroleum Co. At the center of the conflict is the impact on the Oakwood Heights neighborhood of Marathon’s Detroit Heavy Oil Upgrade Project that began operations in November 2012. The affected area is south of Fort Street, the River Rouge, South Dix Street and Schaefer Highway near Interstate-75. The refinery is the only one in Michigan and has about 525 employees.

Public Safety

Bill would keep police out of ‘voluntary’ checkpoints

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Police agencies shouldn’t be allowed to help research groups and private companies take blood, urine, saliva and other samples from drivers who stop at voluntary checkpoints, some lawmakers say. The practice of law enforcement officers directing vehicles off the road at so-called voluntary checkpoints creates “fear and intimidation,” said Rep. Jim Runestad, a White Lake Republican and lead sponsor of a new bill that would outlaw such assistance. Drivers who pull over are then asked to provide cheek swabs to provide data to private companies on alcohol and drug use that can “inhibit their driving,” Runestad said. The information can then be used, for example, to design drugged and drunken driving programs.

Co-sponsor Joel Johnson, R-Clare, said he’s heard from people who learned of the practice on Facebook and “are a little concerned. When you have police participating in a voluntary checkpoint, it doesn’t feel voluntary.”
In addition, Johnson said law enforcement agency participation also ties up limited police resources.

Arts & Entertainment

Book explores mining, logging company towns of the Upper Peninsula

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — They were shaped by the mines, forests and quarries of the Upper Peninsula — and by the companies that owned those resources. They were communities that drew workers to the UP from across the globe in search of jobs and opportunities. And today they’re largely gone. Some, like Ford River, Nahma and Pequaming, still rate a pinprick on the official Michigan Department of Transportation highway map. Some, like Simmons, Shelldrake and Emerson are nowhere to be found on that map, even with a magnifying glass.