The Environment Report
The Environment Report explores the relationship between the natural world and the everyday lives of people in Michigan.
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Those for and those against constructing a tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac are making their cases. A comment period for the necessary permits from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy ends this Friday.
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Cigarette butts are one of the most common kind of plastic pollution found on Great Lakes beaches.
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Economists at the University of Michigan's Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics forecast have to negotiate around some uncertainties because of tariffs.
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A circuit court judge in Lansing has denied a request by Enbridge to put a hold on the state court case filed by Attorney General Dana Nessel. The AG took Enbridge to court six years ago.
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In 2024 the National Resources Commission limited hunting on public lands during the period coyotes have young pups dependent on their parents. The NRC has reinstated the year-round hunt season that was in place since 2016 to keep the coyote population suppressed. Year-round hunting has always been allowed for private landowners on their own property.
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A giant wooden "nature megaphone" built by local high school students is now open to the public. The megaphone next to the Belle Isle Nature Center amplifies the sound of nature when you're inside it.
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A number of deteriorating dams have been torn down and streams restored. It's expensive, and Michigan's budget is facing challenges.
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The International Joint Commission has issued a draft report on Protection of the Waters of the Great Lakes, a ten-year review on the consumptive use, diversion, and removal of water from the Great Lakes.
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In the last three decades of data from butterfly counts in the Midwest, none of the butterfly species increased in population. More than 40% declined in number.
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The EPA proposes rescinding the "endangerment finding" that found climate change was harmful to people and greenhouse gases should be restricted. The Trump administration says the "endangerment finding" is costing the economy $54 billion a year. Doctors say the cost to people's health will be higher.
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One evening in the late 1800s, a lighthouse keeper named John Herman was drinking, as he usually did, when he decided to play a prank on his assistant.…
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On a calm morning in late summer 2019, Jim Bailey was kayaking on Lake Superior near Thunder Bay, Ontario, when he found himself paddling through thick…
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When you visit one of the Great Lakes, whether it’s a sandy beach or a rocky coastline, it’s hard to imagine how something so big could be affected so profoundly by alien invasive species, or pollution, or climate change.
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Brian Owens is with Great Lakes Now.Natural populations of oil-degrading bacteria could help to clean up freshwater rivers and lakes after spills from…
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It’s just before 6 p.m. on a breezy Wednesday evening in Little Village, a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. Department of Water Management staffers…
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In the early 1970s, Chicago embarked on one of the region’s most ambitious and expensive infrastructure projects to date: the Tunnel and Reservoir Project…
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What does Michigan’s future look like if we adequately prepare the state’s water resources for climate change? Goodbye to septics and shorehugging homes.…
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Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) are forecasting the…
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Water ran from a fire hydrant, down the street and into a recently redesigned street median in Detroit last week.It was both unassuming and a…
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Some coal fired power plants are being closed. Still, most of Michigan’s utilities heavily rely on coal.“In 2019, coal still fueled the largest share of…