In the interior arch of Michigan’s “thumb” lays the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy, a group dedicated to protecting and restoring surrounding natural areas. 

The conservancy currently owns and manages 9 properties in the region. One property, the Sand Point Nature Preserve, was recently recognized by the Old Growth Forest Network for its potential. 

As a well-established woodlot with trees over a hundred years old, Sand Point hosts migratory birds and and diverse species. Its wetlands aid in flood management. The property also has a rare grove of hemlock trees. 

Although the Old Growth Forest distinction doesn’t immediately grant the property strong legal protections, it does aid the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy when they work to apply for grants and the like. And any additional support to protect the unique ecosystem right off the shores of Lake Huron is welcome. 

Beyond the ecological, the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy continues to protect the surrounding areas for the community to have access to the green space. Executive Director of Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy, Zachary Branigan emphasizes the importance of preserving nature.

Listen: Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy talks Sand Point, Old Growth Forest recognition

“ Having access to high quality outdoor recreation spaces is important, for any community. You know, that’s one thing that, that the highest quality communities in the nation have in common,” says Branigan. And nature preserves like Sand Point provide a space for hikers and dog-walkers, as well as a glimpse into more heavily wooded past. 

Exploring Sand Point

The Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy gained ownership over the 220 acres of undeveloped land through a series of land acquisitions between 2008-2012. 

Sand Point is the largest of the properties they oversee, and includes a wide range of features that make it a gem in the region that was hit hard by deforestation in the logging boom. Program Director Trevor Edmonds highlights some of the features on property.

Listen: Program Manager Trevor Edmonds walks us through Sand Point

 ”There’s some pretty dense mature forests. Like kind of open meadow areas, and then some, various types of wetlands on the property. There’s a lake, there’s kind of like a seasonal pond, on the property as well,”” says Edmonds. He adds that because of the diverse array of habitats, there’s diverse fauna, including reptiles and amphibians.

As a part of their mission to maintain high quality natural areas the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy takes inventory of signs of health and potential threats to the established landscape. 

Signs of ecological health at Sand Point include different species of trees—Edmonds points out maple, black cherry, and paper birch in the immediate area. He also looks for indicator species, which foreshadow what kinds of vegetation will thrive in the future. 

Understory vegetation is another noted feature. “There’s a very robust canopy throughout much of this preserve’s acreage, which really kind of speaks to the overall health of the forest on this preserve.”

Caretaking in nature

Edmonds then got into the weeds of property management at Sand Point. 

Since acquiring the property in full, the conservancy has become experts on the wetlands and woods that make up Sand Point, as well as the pests, diseases, and invasives that threaten them. 

The most present invasive on the property is phragmites, which Edmonds generally treats with hand-swiping—placing herbicide on a glove and targeting the undesirable plants in order to leave “the lightest touch possible” on the landscape. 

A deep knowledge of the environment helps Edmonds monitor for invasive species and disease in the areas they are most likely to appear in, and the places they can do the most harm. 

Eastern Hemlocks

One of the key features that garners attention at Sand Point is the Eastern Hemlocks. They aren’t a common tree throughout Michigan, and especially not in the thumb. Part of that is because they need a healthy tree canopy above them to grow. 

Branigan describes the hemlock groves as dark and brooding, and Edmonds say that they’re a part of why Sand Point is his favorite property— in addition to its reliable five lined skink sightings. 

However, hemlocks face a threat in the hemlock woolly adelgid. 

 Edmonds shares how the conservancy monitors for the threat. “You’re actually trying to look specifically at like the undersides of the needles. And if you actually see, like at the base of the needles where they connect to the branches, it basically will look…almost like kind of a white cottony mass that starts to like develop at the base of the needles, under the branches.”

Thankfully, Sand Point hasn’t caught any sign of the harmful pest so far. Edmonds says that its more present in the west side of the state. 

But, if woolly adelgid does appear, there are ways to treat it if its detected early. “You can do like a treatment around the base where the, the roots will bring it up into the canopy of the tree and basically like eliminate the infestation.”

For now, he and other conservationists in the area maintain a careful watch. 

Safeguarding access to a healthy environment

Conserving a large undeveloped land like Sand Point provides space for recreation, mitigating effects and causes of climate change, and a place for wildlife to thrive. 

It’s also an education in nature. Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy’s restoration and conservation efforts uplift their preserves as healthy ambassador landscapes, environments that serve as an example of what natural areas should be at their best. “While it does obviously serve an important purpose in and of itself, hopefully the people that come and visit our properties, across all the counties that we work in… take a little something home from that as well,” says Branigan. 

Additionally, it provides another place for people to fall in love with the environment.

Edmonds reflected on what it means to him as a new parent to see his daughter’s connection to nature grow. Although it’s more common to fall in love with the outdoors in one’s youth, he notes that it’s never too late for someone to click with nature. 

“Nature’s always here, and we want to be an entity that makes it be the case. We want nature to be here for people and then when they’re ready to receive it and you know, be a part of it and do what they can to protect it, then like that’s on them. But we just want to be facilitators for those times when they become receptive and ready for it.”

This story is a part of WDET’s Detroit Tree Canopy Project

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In this episode of CuriosiD, we answer the question:

Why isn’t Lake St. Clair considered a Great Lake?

An easy way to remember the names of the five Great Lakes is by thinking of HOMES—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. Add St. Clair to the list, re-arrange the first letters, and you get “SCHMOES.” Any schmo knows St. Clair is not considered a Great Lake. But why not?

Brian Champine of Pittsburgh grew up on the lake in Chesterfield Township. He wants to know why the lake doesn’t get the same recognition as the others that surround Michigan.

“I always call it the ‘not-so-great’ lake,” Champine says. “It’s such a contributor to the overall health of the Great Lakes system, I want to see it get more appreciation.”

So, let’s dive into his question: Why isn’t Lake St Clair one of the Great Lakes?

Size matters

Donna Kashian has thought about this a lot. She’s a professor of biological sciences at Wayne State University. She’s also the president of the International Society for Great Lakes Research. Kashian and her students have studied Lake St. Clair for years. She offers what seems like the obvious answer to the question.

“I do think it’s solely on size,” Kashian says.

One look at a map supports the professor’s hypothesis. Each Great Lake dwarfs Lake St. Clair, which covers 430 square miles. That’s less than a tenth the size of Lake Ontario, the smallest Great Lake in terms of surface area. In terms of depth and volume, Lake St. Clair is shallower and holds 99 percent less water than Lake Erie.

While it may not be great in size, Kashian says Lake St. Clair’s impact on the rest of the lakes is huge.

“I look at it as the heart of the Great Lakes, because it’s even shaped like a heart,” she says.

The fishing is great

That heart pumps billions of dollars a year into Macomb County’s economy alone, providing the lifeblood for recreation, such as sport fishing.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy says nearly a third of all sport fish caught in the Great Lakes basin every year come out of Lake St. Clair. The Bassmasters professional fishing tournament happens on the lake every summer.

Amateur anglers can charter a fishing boat or find a secluded spot on shore, like Tom Anderson of St. Clair Shores did. He fishes the Clinton River for perch, pike, and walleye, but rarely keeps anything he catches.

“I’m just out here to have fun,” Anderson says. “I really don’t care to have to clean them.”

Boaters love it

Boating is big business on Lake St. Clair, but it’s also a lifestyle. Steve Dobreff calls Harrison Township “Boat Town USA.”

“We have more boats per capita than anywhere else in the world in this little square mile territory,” he says.

Dobreff is a lawyer, but his passion is boating. He owns the Freedom Boat Club on South River Road. The club offers members the benefits of using a boat without the hassle of owning one.

“We own the boats, we do all the maintenance, all the work that you don’t want to do as an owner,” Dobreff says. “And our members get to use the boats here on Lake St. Clair.”

It’s a vital shipping route

Pleasure boats share the water with much bigger vessels, namely freighters carrying ore and other cargo. Lake St. Clair connects lakes Erie and Huron, creating a critical link in the multi-billion-dollar Great Lakes shipping industry.

The Lake Carriers Association says ships carry more than 160 million metric tons of commercial cargo across the Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair every year.

Policing the lake is a big job

The Macomb County Marine Division watches over boating and other recreational activities on Lake St. Clair. Its commander is Lt. Gary Wiegand. He says deputies patrol the water to ensure are boating safely.

“Life jackets are a big concern,” Wiegand says. “We’re also available for any kind of search and rescue or recovery operations.”

The marine division employs eight full-time sheriff deputies year-round and 70 reserve officers in the summer. Wiegand says law enforcement is their primary mission, but education is part of the job, too.

“We teach boater safety year-round at no cost to the public,” he says.

The lake is central to the environment

Lake St. Clair features the largest freshwater delta in North America. Much of that water flows through an area called “the flats” on Harsen’s Island. This creates a large habitat for all kinds of animal life, especial waterfowl.

John Darling is a wildlife technician for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. He oversees the managed hunting unit at the Lake St. Clair Flats State Wildlife area on the island. He says this is a vital hub for bird migration.

“We are at the point where the Mississippi Flyway and the Atlantic Flyway for waterfowl come together,” Darling says. “We get crossovers from both flyways with birds heading to the Atlantic Coast birds that are heading down to Mississippi.”

As water flows from the St. Clair River into Lake St. Clair, Darling says the wetland acts as a filter.

“It’s slowing down that water, it’s allowing sediment to drop out,” he says. “It’s absorbing some of the pollution that’s coming downstream.”

Millions get drinking water from the lake

Removing pollutants is critical because Lake St. Clair provides drinking water for more than four million people in southeast Michigan. Candice Miller is the Macomb County Public Works Commissioner. She’s lived her entire life near the lake and says protecting it is a big job.

“I look out there and I think about how I’m trying to do whatever we can in our department to impact the water quality and the quality of life for people that live around the lake,” she says.

Making a small lake great (again?)

Miller’s previous job was representing Macomb County in Congress. The first resolution she introduced in the House in 2003 called on Washington to preserve and protect Lake St. Clair as a vital part of the Great Lakes System. If she had a vote today, Miller says she’d give the lake a promotion.

“In my mind it is a great lake,” she says. “I don’t care if anybody says anything different, we love it.”

And there is precedent. In 1998, the federal government designated Lake Champlain between upstate New York and Vermont as the sixth Great Lake. That lasted about two weeks after states bordering the other five lakes objected.

Congressman Shri Thanedar, whose district includes part of Lake St. Clair, says he would not make it an official Great Lake. But he agrees with Candice Miller it’s worth protecting.

“It supports 18,000 jobs, it contributes almost $2 billion in economic activity annually, so it means a lot,” Thanedar says.

The Detroit Democrat says he has sponsored efforts in both the U.S. House and the Michigan Legislature to clean up pollution in Lake St. Clair.

“A lot of the resources have to come from the federal government,” Thanedar says. “We need to make it a priority to clean our water.”

WDET’s CuriosiD series answers your questions about everything Detroit. Subscribe to CuriosiD on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The post CuriosiD: Why isn’t Lake St. Clair a Great Lake? appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By Alex Brown, Stateline.org

For years, Western leaders have debated the creation of a regional energy market: a coordinated grid to pool solar power in Arizona, wind in Wyoming, hydro in Washington and battery storage in California.

The shared resources would meet the demands of 11 different states, bolstering utilities’ local power plants with surplus energy from across the region.

With the passage of a landmark new law in California, that market is finally on its way to becoming a reality. Proponents say it has the potential to lower energy costs, make the grid more resilient and speed up the deployment of clean energy.

But the market’s success, experts agree, depends heavily on which states and utilities decide to opt in. As energy issues have become increasingly politicized, it’s uncertain whether Western leaders can buy into a common vision for meeting the region’s power needs.

“As we move toward weather-dependent renewables to run our grid, we’ve got to have a grid that is bigger than a weather pattern,” said California Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation aimed at establishing the new market. “A Western energy market is critical.”

The California measure earned bipartisan support, and leaders in conservative and liberal states alike have long touted the benefits of a region-wide market.

But some skeptics worry about merging the power systems of states with varying climate goals. And some fear the new market could give federal regulators appointed by President Donald Trump an opening to interfere and mandate more fossil fuel-powered plants that can be turned on regardless of the weather.

A bigger market

Across the 11 Western states that straddle or sit west of the Rocky Mountains, 37 separate private and public utilities operate portions of the grid.

This fragmented structure differs from the grid systems in Eastern and Midwestern states, where regional transmission organizations, or RTOs, coordinate and plan for energy needs across vast swaths of the country.

Backers of a Western market argue that a region-wide approach would be much more efficient.

Under the current system, each utility is required by state public utility commissions to build enough power to meet peak energy demands. That could mean building gas plants that only turn on a few times a year during extreme heat waves.

As part of a West-wide market, utilities could manage those high-demand events by importing power from other parts of the region that are generating surplus electricity. Such agreements could also prevent the periodic shutdowns of wind and solar farms when they produce more energy than local utilities can use.

“We could be drawing on the solar resources from the Southwest during the day, and then in the evening the wind resources in Montana and Wyoming are a great benefit,” said Austin Scharff, senior energy policy specialist with the Washington State Department of Commerce. “We have a lot of hydro resources, and we can help make sure the regional grid stays balanced when those are needed.”

Some industry leaders say such trading would allow states to pull in cheap electricity from elsewhere, rather than building expensive new power plants.

“When you have this bigger market, not everybody has to build to their peak in the same way,” said Leah Rubin Shen, managing director with Advanced Energy United, an industry group focused on energy and transportation. “Everybody’s able to share.”

Western states do trade electricity on a bilateral basis between individual utilities. Utilities spanning much of the West also transact through a real-time market that allows them to address pressing short-term demand issues. Some are poised to join a new day-ahead market that will conduct planning based on daily demand and production forecasts.

But some lawmakers and officials believe the region needs a larger vision that goes beyond moment-by-moment needs, a market that can plan interstate transmission lines and energy projects to serve the whole region in the decades to come.

“We’re facing really rapidly growing energy demand,” said Nevada Assemblymember Howard Watts, a Democrat. “The best way for us to meet that is to effectively move energy all across the Western U.S. The only way we can do that is through an RTO.”

Watts sponsored a bill, enacted in 2021, that requires Nevada to join an RTO by 2030. Colorado also passed a law that year with a 2030 deadline for utilities to join an RTO.

“Any future is better than our status quo, which is 37 separate grids in the West,” said Chris Hansen, a former Democratic senator who sponsored the Colorado legislation. “We can lower costs and provide greater reliability if we’re sharing resources.”

Hansen now serves as CEO of La Plata Electric Association, an electric cooperative in southwestern Colorado.

A new market

The push for a West-wide market had always faced one major hurdle: Any market would likely include the massive geographical footprint and energy supply managed by the California Independent System Operator, or CAISO. As the West’s largest grid operator, CAISO manages the flow of electricity across most of the Golden State. It’s governed by a five-member board appointed by California’s governor, and other states were unlikely to sign up for a market in which they have no representation.

The law passed by California legislators last month allows for a new organization with independent governance from across the region to oversee Western energy markets.

“This legislation is a key reset and has been the largest sticking point in building a regional market,” said Amanda Ormond, managing director of the Western Grid Group, which advocates for a more efficient grid. “This is a primary concern of a lot of folks that has now been solved.”

The law sets in motion a yearslong process that will task regional leaders with establishing the organization’s governance and navigating a series of regulatory procedures. The new market could be in place by 2028.

State leaders across the West say the California law is a long-awaited development.

“You get this really good benefit from being able to optimize across a larger footprint than an individual utility can,” said Tim Kowalchik, research director with the Utah Office of Energy Development. “Those resources can play really well together.”

Utah led a study in 2021, collaborating with other Western states, exploring the potential for energy markets in the region. State officials say the research has helped drive the current effort.

“It was fascinating how substantial the benefits were,” said Letha Tawney, chair of the Oregon Public Utility Commission. “The interdependence of the West started to become much more apparent, and it really changed the conversation.”

The study looked at a variety of market options and found that an RTO would have significant benefits, lowering costs for electricity customers and promoting clean energy. Based on the study’s projections, the market would produce roughly $2 billion in gross benefits per year, largely by saving utilities from building extra capacity.

Another study in 2022, conducted by a pair of consulting firms, found that an RTO would create as many as 657,000 permanent jobs and bolster the region’s economy.

While Western leaders say the potential benefits are massive, no states outside of Nevada and Colorado have committed to joining a regional RTO. State leaders say they’ll be watching carefully to see what emerges from the new California law. While the decision on joining the market will largely be left to individual utilities, state regulators can play a major role by directing them to conduct an economic analysis of such a move.

State sovereignty

The push for a regional market has also faced opposition from skeptics who fear it undermines states’ power to set their own energy and climate goals. Some point to Eastern governors’ frustration with PJM Interconnection, the RTO that manages the grid across a swath of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic.

“It’s very dangerous,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a California-based nonprofit advocacy group. “We’re giving up control of our sovereignty. Once a state’s in, it’s not the state that has the control.”

Some experts fear that states with significant coal or gas industries may be hesitant to join a market that could incentivize their utilities to import cheap solar power from elsewhere. On the flip side, some climate advocates in California are wary of plugging into a market that could support coal power from out of state.

“Some states are parochial-minded: ‘This is a California thing, and we don’t want anything to do with California,’” said Vijay Satyal, deputy director of markets and transmission with Western Resource Advocates, a nonprofit climate-focused group. “That one state’s government will not decide how a market will be operated, it’s a seismic shift in the industry.”

Backers of an RTO argue that it can incorporate states’ varying energy goals. They point to research showing that the market will support renewable power. But others fear merging fates with coal-heavy states could give federal regulators more leverage to intervene in favor of fossil-fuel power.

Even if Trump is out of office when the market comes online, the regulators he appoints to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will still be serving out their terms. Some believe FERC could set rules that require the new market to favor fossil fuel-powered resources.

“When you have a mixed market with a lot of coal plants, it creates opportunities for the Trump administration to rejigger the rules to favor coal,” said Matthew Freedman, renewables attorney with The Utility Reform Network, a California-based consumer advocacy group. “In another reality, this would have sounded like a hysterical concern, but it’s pretty obvious where [Trump’s appointees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] want to go.”

Freedman’s group pushed California lawmakers for protections that would have given states more flexibility to withdraw from the market, while also prohibiting “resource adequacy” mandates that could be used by the feds to prop up coal. While those elements were included in a Senate version of the bill, they were stripped from the Assembly bill that ultimately was passed.

Supporters of the bill say such concerns are overblown, and the new market is structured to avoid the pitfalls facing other RTOs.

“The simple economic fact is that right now clean energy resources are the cheapest in the world,” said Petrie-Norris, the law’s sponsor. “We’re going to see solar displacing dirty fuels rather than the reverse.”

Much depends on convincing states and utilities it’s in their best interests to join the market. The strength-in-numbers advantages of an RTO depend on widespread participation. While many Western leaders have long touted a region-wide market, the opportunity is arising at a time where energy has become a partisan issue.

Meanwhile, the long-awaited market emerging from California is facing new competition from the east. The Southwest Power Pool, an Arkansas-based RTO serving the middle of the country, is expanding its footprint in the West, with several utilities poised to join its day-ahead market.

“Anytime you have two neighboring utilities in different markets, you have seams that create a lot of friction and inefficiency,” said Rubin Shen, with the energy industry group. “Whether or not everybody can come together and be all-in on a full West-wide market, it’s too soon to tell.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Southeast Michigan’s streams and rivers are studded by shadows of our industrial past. Henry Ford brought mass production of vehicles to the world, and he needed energy to power his industry. 

Old hydroelectric dams are still installed along the Rouge and Huron Rivers, but they’re crumbling and it’s becoming time to repair them, or remove them. 

In Michigan, the fate of these aging dams is still hotly debated in town halls and city council meetings. One of those place is Flat Rock, MI, where residents and local officials urged Huron-Clinton Metroparks not to remove the dam.

LISTEN: Metroparks to vote on future of Flat Rock Dam

While the fate of Flat Rock Dam is still uncertain, 120 dams have been removed in Michigan, according to a database published by American Rivers, a river restoration nonprofit.

And dam removal brings a number of benefits for the waterway and surrounding areas, including: biodiversity and fish passage, water quality, and mitigation of catastrophic flooding in the case of dam failure.

So, what’s next for Michigan’s dams and rivers? What options do residents and lawmakers have? And, what opportunities are ahead for the Great Lakes state?

Elizabeth Riggs, the Great Lakes Regional Director for American Rivers, joined Robyn Vincent on the Metro to discuss.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

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By JULIE WATSON

When the corroded pipeline burst in 2015, inky crude spread along the Southern California coast, becoming the state’s worst oil spill in decades.

More than 140,000 gallons (3,300 barrels) of oil gushed out, blackening beaches for 150 miles from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, polluting a biologically rich habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles, killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins, and decimating the fishing industry.

Plains All American Pipeline in 2022 agreed to a $230 million settlement with fishers and coastal property owners without admitting liability. Federal inspectors found that the Houston-based company failed to quickly detect the rupture and responded too slowly. It faced an uphill battle to build a new pipeline.

Three decades-old drilling platforms were subsequently shuttered, but another Texas-based fossil fuel company supported by the Trump administration purchased the operation and is intent on pumping oil through the pipeline again.

Sable Offshore Corp., headquartered in Houston, is facing a slew of legal challenges but is determined to restart production, even if that means confining it to federal waters, where state regulators have virtually no say. California controls the 3 miles nearest to shore. The platforms are 5 to 9 miles offshore.

The Trump administration has hailed Sable’s plans as the kind of project the president wants to increase U.S. energy production as the federal government removes regulatory barriers. President Donald Trump has directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to undo his predecessor’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts.

Environmentalist sue to stop the project

“This project risks another environmental disaster in California at a time when demand for oil is going down and the climate crisis is escalating,” said Alex Katz, executive director of Environmental Defense Center, the Santa Barbara group formed in response to a massive spill in 1969.

The environmental organization is among several suing Sable.

“Our concern is that there is no way to make this pipeline safe and that this company has proven that it cannot be trusted to operate safely, responsibly or even legally,” he said.

Actor and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who lives in the area, has implored officials to stop Sable, saying at a March protest: “I can smell a rat. And this project is a rat.”

The California Coastal Commission fined Sable a record $18 million for ignoring cease-and-desist orders over repair work it says was done without permits. Sable said it has permits from the previous owner, Exxon Mobil, and sued the commission while work continued on the pipeline. In June, a state judge ordered it to stop while the case proceeds through the court. The commission and Sable are due back in court Wednesday.

“This fly-by-night oil company has repeatedly abused the public’s trust, racking up millions of dollars in fines and causing environmental damage along the treasured Gaviota Coast,” a state park south of Santa Barbara, said Joshua Smith, the commission’s spokesman.

Sable keeps moving forward

So far, Sable is undeterred.

The California Attorney General’s office sued Sable this month, saying it illegally discharged waste into waterways, and disregarded state law requiring permits before work along the pipeline route that crosses sensitive wildlife habitat.

“Sable placed profits over environmental protection in its rush to get oil on the market,” the agency said in its lawsuit.

Last month, the Santa Barbara District Attorney filed felony criminal charges against Sable, also accusing it of polluting waterways and harming wildlife.

Sable said it has fully cooperated with local and state agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and called the district attorney’s allegation “inflammatory and extremely misleading.” It said a biologist and state fire marshal officials oversaw the work, and no wildlife was harmed.

The company is seeking $347 million for the delays, and says if the state blocks it from restarting the onshore pipeline system, it will use a floating facility that would keep its entire operation in federal waters and use tankers to transport the oil to markets outside California. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, the company updated its plan to include the option.

Fulfilling the president’s energy promise

The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in July it was working with Sable to bring a second rig online.

“President Trump made it clear that American energy should come from American resources,” the agency’s deputy director Kenny Stevens said in a statement then, heralding the “comeback story for Pacific production.”

The agency said there are an estimated 190 million barrels (6 billion gallons) of recoverable oil reserves in the area, nearly 80% of residual Pacific reserves. It noted advancements in preventing and preparing for oil spills and said the failed pipeline has been rigorously tested.

“Continuous monitoring and improved technology significantly reduce the risk of a similar incident occurring in the future,” the agency said.

CEO says project could lower gas prices

On May 19 — the 10th anniversary of the disaster — CEO Jim Flores announced that Sable “is proud to have safely and responsibly achieved first production at the Santa Ynez Unit” — which includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility.

State officials countered that the company had only conducted testing and not commercial production. Sable’s stock price dropped and some investors sued, alleging they were misled.

Sable purchased the Santa Ynez Unit from Exxon Mobil in 2024 for nearly $650 million primarily with a loan from Exxon. Exxon sold the shuttered operation after losing a court battle in 2023 to truck the crude through central California while the pipeline system was rebuilt or repaired.

Flores said well tests at the Platform Harmony rig indicate there is much oil to be extracted and that it will relieve California’s gas prices — among the nation’s highest — by stabilizing supplies.

“Sable is very concerned about the crumbling energy complex in California,” Flores said in a statement to The Associated Press. “With the exit of two refineries last year and more shuttering soon, California’s economy cannot survive without the strong energy infrastructure it enjoyed for the last 150 years.”

California has been reducing the state’s production of fossil fuels in favor of clean energy for years. The movement has been spearheaded partly by Santa Barbara County, where elected officials voted in May to begin taking steps to phase out onshore oil and gas operations.

Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana contributed to this report.

By PATRICK WHITTLE

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine (AP) — Republican lawmakers are targeting one of the U.S.’s longest standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction.

Conservative leaders feel they now have the political will to remove key pieces of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972 to protect whales, seals, polar bears and other sea animals. The law also places restrictions on commercial fishermen, shippers and other marine industries.

A GOP-led bill in the works has support from fishermen in Maine who say the law makes lobster fishing more difficult, lobbyists for big-money species such as tuna in Hawaii and crab in Alaska, and marine manufacturers who see the law as antiquated.

Conservation groups adamantly oppose the changes and say weakening the law will erase years of hard-won gains for jeopardized species such as the vanishing North Atlantic right whale, of which there are less than 400, and is vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear.

Here’s what to know about the protection act and the proposed changes.

Why does the 1970s law still matter

“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is important because it’s one of our bedrock laws that help us to base conservation measures on the best available science,” said Kathleen Collins, senior marine campaign manager with International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Species on the brink of extinction have been brought back.”

It was enacted the year before the Endangered Species Act, at a time when the movement to save whales from extinction was growing. Scientist Roger Payne had discovered that whales could sing in the late 1960s, and their voices soon appeared on record albums and throughout popular culture.

The law protects all marine mammals, and prohibits capturing or killing them in U.S. waters or by U.S. citizens on the high seas. It allowed for preventative measures to stop commercial fishing ships and other businesses from accidentally harming animals such as whales and seals. The animals can be harmed by entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships and other hazards at sea.

The law also prevents the hunting of marine mammals, including polar bears, with exceptions for Indigenous groups. Some of those animals can be legally hunted in other countries.

Changes to oil and gas operations — and whale safety

Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska, a state with a large fishing industry, submitted a bill draft this summer that would roll back aspects of the law. The bill says the act has “unduly and unnecessarily constrained government, tribes and the regulated community” since its inception.

The proposal states that it would make changes such as lowering population goals for marine mammals from “maximum productivity” to the level needed to “support continued survival.” It would also ease rules on what constitutes harm to marine mammals.

For example, the law currently prevents harassment of sea mammals such as whales, and defines harassment as activities that have “the potential to injure a marine mammal.” The proposed changes would limit the definition to only activities that actually injure the animals. That change could have major implications for industries such as oil and gas exploration where rare whales live.

That poses an existential threat to the Rice’s whale, which numbers only in the dozens and lives in the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists said. And the proposal takes specific aim at the North Atlantic right whale protections with a clause that would delay rules designed to protect that declining whale population until 2035.

Begich and his staff did not return calls for comment on the bill, and his staff declined to provide an update about where it stands in Congress. Begich has said he wants “a bill that protects marine mammals and also works for the people who live and work alongside them, especially in Alaska.”

Fishing groups want restrictions loosened

A coalition of fishing groups from both coasts has come out in support of the proposed changes. Some of the same groups lauded a previous effort by the Trump administration to reduce regulatory burdens on commercial fishing.

The groups said in a July letter to House members that they feel Begich’s changes reflect “a positive and necessary step” for American fisheries’ success.

Restrictions imposed on lobster fishermen of Maine are designed to protect the right whale, but they often provide little protection for the animals while limiting one of America’s signature fisheries, Virginia Olsen, political director of the Maine Lobstering Union, said. The restrictions stipulate where lobstermen can fish and what kinds of gear they can use. The whales are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in heavy fishing rope.

Gathering more accurate data about right whales while revising the original law would help protect the animals, Olsen said.

“We do not want to see marine mammals harmed; we need a healthy, vibrant ocean and a plentiful marine habitat to continue Maine’s heritage fishery,” Olsen said.

Some members of other maritime industries have also called on Congress to update the law. The National Marine Manufacturers Association said in a statement that the rules have not kept pace with advancements in the marine industry, making innovation in the business difficult.

Environmentalists fight back

Numerous environmental groups have vowed to fight to save the protection act. They characterized the proposed changes as part of the Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections.

The act was instrumental in protecting the humpback whale, one of the species most beloved by whale watchers, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with Oceana. Along with other sea mammals, humpbacks would be in jeopardy without it, he said.

“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is flexible. It works. It’s effective. We don’t need to overhaul this law at this point,” Brogan said.

What does this mean for seafood imports

The original law makes it illegal to import marine mammal products without a permit, and allows the U.S. to impose import prohibitions on seafood products from foreign fisheries that don’t meet U.S. standards.

The import embargoes are a major sticking point because they punish American businesses, said Gavin Gibbons, chief strategy officer of the National Fisheries Institute, a Virginia-based seafood industry trade group. It’s critical to source seafood globally to be able to meet American demand for seafood, he said.

The National Fisheries Institute and a coalition of industry groups sued the federal government Thursday over what they described as unlawful implementation of the protection act. Gibbons said the groups don’t oppose the act, but want to see it responsibly implemented.

“Our fisheries are well regulated and appropriately fished to their maximum sustainable yield,” Gibbons said. “The men and women who work our waters are iconic and responsible. They can’t be expected to just fish more here to make up a deficit while jeopardizing the sustainability they’ve worked so hard to maintain.”

Some environmental groups said the Republican lawmakers’ proposed changes could weaken American seafood competitiveness by allowing imports from poorly regulated foreign fisheries.

This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Michigan’s dime deposit program is almost 50 years old and is always in the news because of efforts to expand or repeal it. But, do you know what happens to that plastic and aluminum when you take it back to a retailer?

Frederick Lawrence is a logistics faculty in CMU’s College of Business Administration and is the director of internships for the logistics management program. He answers questions about what happens behind the scenes.

Q. What do retailers do with bottles and cans after people return them?

Retailers take action based on their size, resources and capabilities. Generally, retailers collect cans, separate them by brand and store them in anticipation of pickup by distributors or third-party recyclers.

Larger retailers, like supercenters, commonly have reverse vending machines (RVMs) which allow customers to manually return their own cans. These machines are equipped with conveyors and scanners which detect what cans or bottles are being fed into the machine, if they are accepted by the retailer, and which brand the item is. Once this information is processed, the bottle or can is crushed by a compactor and sorted automatically.

Smaller retailers commonly store cans and bottles in bins or bags in a storage area and the retailer manually separates the containers according to the respective brand.

Q. How does storing those bottles and cans affect the layout of a store?

The storage of cans and bottles can impact store layout, but more accurately, how space is utilized. These effects vary based on store size, resources and typical volume of returns.

Large-scale retailers typically have a dedicated return area, often near an entrance or side of the store, with multiple RVMs to accept consumer returns. Stores design return areas with proper drainage, ventilation and easy-to-clean surfaces to manage spills and odors as manual can-return can be quite messy.

Large-scale retailers also coordinate frequent pickups with distributors or third-party recyclers to avoid recycling overflow and must allocate loading dock space for bottle and can removal. Smaller retailers, because of a lack of automation, face more spatial constraints and often adjust their layout, either by reducing product stock space or by limiting return volumes per customer (retailers in Michigan may limit refunds to $25 per person per day).

Returns can be stored in a variety of locations, including backrooms, basements, behind the checkout counter or even outdoor sheds. This is largely due to the space constraint of being smaller and not having an abundance of extra space available in the layout.

Since small stores typically lack automated compactors, they must store full-size bottles and cans, which take up more space than crushed cans and bottles. This may result in smaller retailers making tradeoffs in how they utilize space; as an extreme example, space that could be used to sell merchandise may have to be retrofitted to store returnable items.

Q. What kind of infrastructure is necessary to transport those bottles and cans?

Transporting returned bottles and cans in Michigan requires a specialized infrastructure that includes collection systems, storage facilities, transportation vehicles and processing centers.

Retailers play an integral role in the collection and storage of claimed returnables (cans and bottles that consumers return themselves). Following this, cans and bottles are picked up by distributors (like Pepsi or Coca-Cola) and third-party recyclers.

The transportation equipment varies, but can generally involve the use of box trucks, semi-trucks using specialized trailers with compartments for specific recycled materials or compactor trucks (which can be used to crush aluminum in plastic if the retailer has not already done this).

As cost control and value reclamation in this process are critical, haulers generally work to optimize their networks by developing designated collection routes based on retailer locations and return volume. This is called “network optimization” and is one of the many Logistics Management and Supply Chain skills/strategies that Logistics Management majors at CMU learn!

Cans/bottles are crushed and sorted, if they have not been already, and are transported to various processing facilities that can repurpose or reuse the materials.

Q. How much does transporting bottles and cans cost annually?

Exact cost figures are difficult to accurately calculate due to the number of stakeholders and partners involved in recycling bottles and cans and the various methods and resources used (including collection, sorting and transportation expenses). Additionally, not all cost figures associated with these processes are publicly disclosed.

According to Michigan.gov (2025), Michigan’s refund rate was approximately 73% in 2023 with total Michigan deposits of $389.5 million and total refunds of $284.6 million. This means that 27%, or approximately $105.3 million of deposits went unclaimed. An unclaimed can or bottle refers to a beverage container for which a deposit was paid at the time of purchase (by the consumer) but was never returned for a refund.

In Michigan, consumers pay a $0.10 deposit per container when purchasing certain beverages. To get this deposit back, individuals must return the empty container to a participating retailer or redemption center. The unclaimed deposit amount is simply the difference between the deposits collected and the deposits refunded statewide.

Of the statewide revenue generated by unclaimed deposits, the funds are divided so that 75% of the revenue goes to the state (used for environmental cleanup and pollution prevention) and 25% goes to retailers (to help cover the general costs of managing returns). Based on 2023 data on unclaimed deposits, the state received about $79 million, and retailers got around $26 million to help offset handling costs associated with returns.

At the statewide level, this process relies on financial tracking rather than container counting, so the state doesn’t need to locate unclaimed containers. In fact, many unclaimed cans and bottles may end up in landfills, as roadside litter, curbside recycling or even hoarded in garages.

Q. What ultimately happens to bottles and cans that are returned to stores?

Ultimately, once bottles and cans are returned to Michigan retailers and are picked up and transported by various distributors and recyclers, the material will be processed.

Aluminum cans are crushed, shredded, and melted down and the molten aluminum is rolled into sheets and used to manufacture new beverage cans. Interestingly, aluminum cans can be recycled and reused relatively quickly, with some recycled aluminum being returned to shelves as new products in as little as 60 days.

Plastic bottles may be washed for reuse, shredded into small flakes or melted. The recycled plastic can be used to create new beverage bottles or even repurposed in clothing (e.g., fleece jackets), carpeting, auto parts and many other plastic goods.

Overall, the goal is to reclaim value in the recycled goods and to reduce the creation and use of new “virgin” plastics. Michigan’s bottle return system works to ensure that a significant percentage of beverage containers are recycled and repurposed rather than ending up in landfills.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS and MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is cancelling $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.

The cuts were announced in a social media post late Wednesday by Russell Vought, the White House budget director: “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

The move comes as President Donald Trump threatens cuts and firings in his fight with congressional Democrats over the federal government shutdown.

These cuts are likely to affect battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and carbon-capture efforts, among many others, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Energy Department said in a statement Thursday that 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable. Officials did not provide details about which projects are being cut, but said funding came from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other DOE bureaus.

The cuts include $1.2 billion for California’s hydrogen hub that is aimed at accelerating hydrogen technology and production, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. The private sector has committed $10 billion for the hydrogen hub, Newsom’s office said, adding that canceling the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems threatens over 200,000 jobs.

“Clean hydrogen deserves to be part of California’s energy future — creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and saving billions in health costs,” the Democratic governor said.

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla called cancelation of the project “vindictive, shortsighted and proof this administration is not serious about American energy dominance.”

The DOE said it has reviewed billions of dollars awarded by the Biden administration after Trump won the presidential election last November. More than a quarter of the rescinded grants were awarded between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the department said. The awards totaled more than $3.1 billion.

“President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. Today’s cancellations deliver on that commitment,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

The Trump administration has broadly targeted climate programs and clean energy, and is proposing to roll back vehicle emission and other greenhouse gas rules it says can’t be justified. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed overturning a 2009 finding that climate change threatens public health. Many climate scientists have criticized the EPA effort as biased and misleading.

Democrats and environmental organizations were quick to slam the latest cuts, saying they would raise energy costs.

“This is yet another blow by the Trump administration against innovative technology, jobs and the clean energy needed to meet skyrocketing demand,” said Jackie Wong, a senior vice president at NRDC.

Vought said the projects being cut are in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

By JOSEPH FREDERICK and MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Crowds of people loaded onto boats to tour the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Wednesday morning with no immediate signs of the government shutdown that is triggering the furlough of about two-thirds of National Park Service employees.

But in Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace, tourists enjoying a crisp fall morning on Independence Mall were thwarted in their hopes of visiting the Liberty Bell. They were being turned away at the entrance and could only steal glances of it inside a glass pavilion.

A shutdown contingency plan released by the park service late Tuesday said “park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors.” However, given sharply reduced staffing, parks without “accessible areas” will be closed during the shutdown. And sites currently open could close if damage is done to park resources or garbage is building up, the plan says.

Yet with limited information offered on government websites, questions were popping up across park service social media sites on Wednesday, with people asking if camping permits would still be good at places like Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico and if the gates would be open at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

The furlough of almost 9,300 park employees means parks that stay open can provide only limited services such as protection of life, property and public safety, the plan says.

In Mississippi, the state’s most-visited cultural attraction, Vicksburg National Military Park, was shut down. A nonprofit group was trying to work out an agreement to re-open it using donated money to pay for staff. At Acadia National Park in Maine, there were no park rangers in sight and would-be hikers in search of trail maps found empty receptacles outside a closed visitor center.

The plan did not detail which of the park service’s more than 400 sites are considered inaccessible. The Associated Press requested further details in emails and a telephone call to officials with the National Park Service and Department of Interior on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The park service oversees large national parks such as Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, national battlefields, national monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and historic sites including Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell. Those attractions often serve as economic engines for nearby communities.

Many national parks stayed open during a five-week shutdown in Trump’s first term. Limited staffing led to vandalism, overflowing garbage, damage to natural resources and illegal off-roading.

A group of 40 former National Park Service superintendents had urged the Trump administration to close the parks during a shutdown to prevent a repeat of the damage that occurred in 2018 and 2019. They warned a shutdown now could be even worse with parks already under strain from a 24% staff cut and severe budget reductions.

During a 2013 shutdown, the park service under former President Barack Obama turned away millions of visitors to its more than 400 parks, national monuments, and other sites. The service estimated that the shutdown led to more than $500 million in lost visitor spending nationwide. That also caused economic damage to gateway communities that border national parks and are heavily dependent on the visitors they draw.

The contingency plan allows parks to enter into agreements with states, tribes or local governments willing to make donations to keep national park sites open.

States where national parks draw major tourism lobbied to keep them open during past shutdowns, and Utah agreed to donate $1.7 million in 2013 to keep its national parks open. Arizona, Colorado, New York, South Dakota and Tennessee have also donated money to keep parks staffed during previous shutdowns.

Colorado’s governor suggested the state could do that again this time for Rocky Mountain National Park. But a spokesperson for the governor of Arizona said last week that it cannot afford to pay to keep open its national parks that include the Grand Canyon.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Matt Rourke contributed from Philadelphia and Susan Montoya Bryan contributed from Albuquerque

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency was already reeling from massive stuff cuts and dramatic shifts in priority and policy. A government shutdown raises new questions about how it can carry out its founding mission of protecting America’s health and environment with little more than skeletal staff and funding.

In President Donald Trump’s second term, the EPA has leaned hard into an agenda of deregulation and facilitating Trump’s boosting of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal to meet what he has called an energy emergency.

Jeremy Symons, a former EPA policy official under President Bill Clinton, said it’s natural to worry that a shutdown will lead “the worst polluters” to treat it as a chance to dump toxic pollution without getting caught.

“Nobody will be holding polluters accountable for what they dump into the air we breathe, in the water we drink while EPA is shut down,” said Symons, now a senior adviser to the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former agency officials advocating for a strong Earth-friendly department.

“This administration has already been implementing a serial shutdown of EPA,” Symons said. “Whittling away at EPA’s ability to do its job.”

A scientific study of pollution from about 200 coal-fired power plants during the 2018-2019 government shutdown found they “significantly increased their particulate matter emissions due to the EPA’s furlough.” Soot pollution is connected to thousands of deaths per year in the United States.

The birth of EPA

The EPA was created under Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970 amid growing fears about pollution of the planet’s air, land and water. Its first administrator, William D. Ruckelshaus, spoke of the need for an “environmental ethic” in his first speech.

“Each of us must begin to realize our own relationship to the environment,” Ruckelshaus said. “Each of us must begin to measure the impact of our own decisions and actions on the quality of air, water, and soil of this nation.”

In the time since then, it has focused on safeguarding and cleaning up the environment, and over the past couple of decades, it also added fighting climate change to its charge.

EPA’s job is essentially setting up standards for what’s healthy for people and the environment, giving money to state and local governments to get that done and then coming down as Earth’s police officer if it isn’t.

“Protecting human health and the environment is critical to the country’s overall well-being,” said Christine Todd Whitman, who was EPA chief under Republican President George W. Bush. “Anything that stops that regulatory process puts us at a disadvantage and endangers the public.”

But priorities change with presidential administrations.

Earlier this year, Trump’s new EPA chief Lee Zeldin unveiled five pillars for the agency. The first is to ensure clean air, land and water. Right behind it is to “restore American energy dominance,” followed by environmental permitting reform, making U.S. the capital of artificial intelligence and protecting American auto jobs.

Zeldin is seeking to rescind a 2009 science-based finding that climate change is a threat to America’s health and well-being. Known as the “endangerment” finding, it forms the foundation of a range of rules that limit pollution from cars, power plants and other sources. Zeldin also has proposed ending a requirement that large, mostly industrial polluters report their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, canceled billions of dollars in solar energy grants and eliminated a research and development division.

Agency’s shutdown plan

The EPA’s shutdown contingency plan, first written a decade ago and slightly updated for this year, says 905 employees are considered essential because they are necessary to protect life and property or because they perform duties needed by law. An additional 828 employees can keep working because they aren’t funded by the annual federal budget and instead get their pay from fees and such.

EPA officials won’t say how many employees they have cut — former officials now at the Environmental Protection Network say it’s 25% — but the Trump administration’s budget plan says the agency now has 14,130 employees, down 1,000 from a year ago. The administration is proposing cutting that to 12,856 in this upcoming budget year and Zeldin has talked of going to levels of around Ronald Reagan’s presidency, which started at around 11,000.

The agency’s shutdown plan calls for it to stop doing non-criminal pollution inspections needed to enforce clean air and water rules. It won’t issue new grants to other governmental agencies, update its website, issue new permits, approve state requests dealing with pollution regulations or conduct most scientific research, according to the EPA document. Except in situations where the public health would be at risk, work on Superfund cleanup sites will stop.

Marc Boom, a former EPA policy official during the Biden administration, said inspections under the Chemical Accident Risk Reduction program would halt. Those are done under the Clean Air Act to make sure facilities are adequately managing the risk of chemical accidents.

“Communities near the facilities will have their risk exposure go up immediately since accidents will be more likely to occur,” Boom said.

He also said EPA hotlines for reporting water and other pollution problems likely will be closed. “So if your water tastes off later this week, there will be no one at EPA to pick up the phone,” he said.

“The quality of water coming out of your tap is directly tied to whether EPA is doing its job,” said Jeanne Briskin, a former 40-year EPA employee who once headed the children’s health protection division.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A veteran water expert from Arizona says the Trump administration withdrew his nomination to lead the federal agency that oversees water management in the western U.S., leaving the Bureau of Reclamation without permanent leadership this year.

Ted Cooke told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he was preparing for a Senate confirmation hearing early this month but his name was removed from the agenda. He wasn’t told until this week that there was an unspecified issue with his background check. Cooke said the White House didn’t offer any details and asked only that he withdraw himself from consideration.

“The real story here is that I’ve been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency because of party politics and maybe Colorado River basin intrigues,” Cooke said, adding that he believes he was given a fabricated excuse “to avoid having any discussion on what the real issue is.”

Cooke said he didn’t know what the issue was.

The shift comes as the bureau and seven states face a deadline to decide how to share the Colorado River amid ongoing drought and shrinking water supplies.

The Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, referred questions about Cooke to the White House, which did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

Trump’s announcement in June that he had tapped Cooke, the former general manager of the Central Arizona Project, drew praise from many who said Cooke’s experience delivering water to the state’s most populous communities would be a plus for the bureau.

Still, officials in other Western states had concerns that Cooke would give deference to his home state as negotiations over the future of the Colorado River come to a head. Water managers have been grappling with the prospect of painful cuts in water supplies as the river dwindles.

The Colorado River is a critical lifeline to seven U.S. states, more than 20 Native American tribes, and two Mexican states. It provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, irrigates vast stretches of desert farmland and reaches faucets in cities throughout the Southwest, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

In Mesa, Arizona, Mayor Mark Freeman had celebrated Cooke’s nomination back in June in a social media post. On Wednesday, the Republican told the AP he was disappointed to learn the nomination wouldn’t move forward.

“Mr. Cooke has dedicated his career to managing Arizona’s water resources, and his deep knowledge of the Colorado River system would have provided valuable insight during this critical time. Although his nomination was not confirmed, the challenges before us remain,” Freeman said, highlighting the need to ensure reliable water supplies.

Anne Castle, former chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said in an email that withdrawal of the nomination “looks like backroom politics at a time when what we really need is straightforward leadership on western water issues.”

Cooke said he heard from some people that his knack for being fair and even-handed might have worked against him. He theorized that some officials might have been pushing to find a “more ruthless” nominee since Colorado River negotiations have been anything but easy.

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said that while Cooke’s withdrawal is a lost opportunity to have a highly qualified person in the job, it’s not likely to disrupt ongoing negotiations. She said the bureau’s acting leadership has been working assiduously to figure out a way forward for river management.

She also doubted that having Cooke lead the bureau would have given Arizona a leg up, saying “there are too many other decision-makers and significant stakeholders involved for that to ever be a real possibility. And they know that Ted would have tried hard to rise above all that.”

It’s unclear whether the Trump administration is considering other candidates for the top post at the bureau.

Associated Press writers Felicia Fonseca in New York City, Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., and Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

The post The Metro: Metroparks offers to sell Flat Rock Dam to city for $5, with additional $3 million for fish ladder appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

The future of a nearly 100-year-old dam in Flat Rock, MI will be determined tomorrow. The board of commissioners for Huron-Clinton Metroparks, who owns the dam, will vote on its long-term plans for the structure at 1 p.m. at Willow Metropark. The meeting is open to the public.

Three proposals

A two-year feasibility study conducted by Huron-Clinton Metroparks produced three options for the future of the dam.

• Leave the dam as-is, but improve the fish ladder
• Partial removal of the dam, with construction of rock arches
• Full removal of the dam

The organization’s CEO Amy McMillan recommended partial removal, saying it would maintain similar water levels of the impoundment and preserve recreation activities like kayaking and fishing.

Community members and elected officials oppose all options that remove the dam, urging Metroparks to leave the dam as-is.

Brad Booth, president of the Flat Rock Dam Coalition, says ‘similar’ is not firm enough. His group wants a commitment from Huron-Clinton Metroparks to alleviate fears of a significant decrease in water level.

Booth told The Metro that in addition to recreational activities, his group is also concerned about property values and changes to flora and fauna.

Aging infrastructure

The aging dam is in fair condition but is classified as a “high hazard potential” by Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). That designation is an assessment of risk, meaning dam failure may cause serious environmental and infrastructure damage, or even loss of life.

A 2020 high-profile dam failure in Mid-Michigan led to severe flooding in Midland, MI, and Sanford Lake was emptied out, wiping out property values and recreation for lakefront homes there.

Elected officials weigh in

Elected officials have joined the chorus of community voices opposed to full or partial dam removal. Rep. Jamie Thompson (R-Brownstown) wrote a letter to the Metroparks board members urging a no vote on dam removal.

Flat Rock’s mayor, Steve Beller, also both spoke at an August 14 board meeting after its city council unanimously passed a resolution to urge Metroparks not to remove the dam.

Environmental impact

Dam removal is growing more common statewide and nationally. Earlier this year, EGLE announced nearly $15 Million dollars in funding for dam removals across the state. 

Proponents of dam removals point to improved river health and biodiversity. They also mitigate the risk of catastrophic dam failures.

In the case of Flat Rock Dam, the Metroparks feasibility study for this project notes improved fish passage for sturgeon, walleye, and salmon to travel up the Huron River to spawn.

Brad Booth, president of the Flat Rock Dam Coalition, joined The Metro to discuss why his organization opposes partial or full removal of the Flat Rock dam.

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The post The Metro: Metroparks to vote on future of Flat Rock Dam appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By ANITA SNOW

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Nothing makes Brad Lancaster happier than a monsoon downpour.

The tall 58-year-old jumped like a kid in the puddles on the sidewalk one recent August afternoon after a half inch (1.3 centimeters) of rain suddenly fell in Tucson, Arizona, during an especially dry summer.

“Sweet!” Lancaster exclaimed, beaming when he saw how the water pooled in a basin he had dug earlier in dirt planted with native vegetation along the public walkway.

“It’s really important that you are ready to plant the rain when it comes, even if it is a small amount,” he said, referring to a simple type of rainwater harvesting that involves digging a hole to allow rainwater to sink underground and be held like a sponge. “The key is to collect every drop of it.”

In the U.S. Southwest and beyond, home gardeners and landscapers are increasingly using collected rainwater to nourish their rose bushes and cactus gardens amid worsening drought and rising temperatures fueled by global warming.

Lancaster and other rainwater harvesting specialists say home gardeners anywhere can benefit from collecting raindrops and runoff from buildings and other surfaces to irrigate plants, even in wetter regions where the practice is less common.

Rainwater collecting is widespread in many of Earth’s driest regions. In Australia, it’s often used for drinking water, bathing and flushing toilets. And in Africa — where Lancaster said he learned more about the practice — it helps communities survive.

Saving the rain is also useful in southern Arizona, which is under pressure from a long-running drought. It’s drier than ever, with Tucson receiving less than half of the about 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain it usually sees by the first week of September.

Some of the heaviest rainfalls in Arizona and other parts of the U.S. Southwest occur in the summer, during the annual North American monsoon season.

As much as two-thirds of residential water in the desert city is used outdoors, said Adriana Zuniga, an associate research professor in environmental policy programs at the University of Arizona.

“The idea is to use less water from the tap to irrigate,” she said.

Rainwater harvesting is by no means a modern revolution.

Zuniga, who has researched water use of the Maya people who lived in what is now Central America and southeastern Mexico, noted that the ancient civilization captured rainwater to survive dry, hot summers.

“It should be fundamental to how we live in the Southwest and ultimately everywhere else in the coming years in the face of climate change,” said Tucson landscaper Eli Nielsen, who co-owns a store that sells rainwater harvesting products including rain chains that guide water from atop buildings.

Looking to create a rain collection system of your own? Here’s how to start:

Educate yourself

Find out if your state has restrictions on rainwater harvesting or requires a permit due to environmental or health and safety considerations. A tool created by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in collaboration with the Federal Energy Management Program can help.

See if your city or county water department has a program that encourages rainwater harvesting or has other resources. Your local community college or cooperative extension office may have educational programs offering guidance.

In the case of Tucson, the city water department offers rebates of up to $2,000 for residential rain collection systems. It works with the local nonprofit Watershed Management Group to provide free 2½-hour classes residents must take to design a collection system that qualifies for a rebate.

One class anyone can attend virtually is the Essential Rain Water Course, offered for free on YouTube. It is co-hosted by water harvesting authority Peter Coombes, an honorary professor at the Australian National University and managing director of the independent think tank Urban Water Cycle Solutions, and Michelle Avis, co-founder of the Canadian organization Verge Permaculture.

Many proponents of collecting precipitation say the most authoritative book on the subject is Lancaster’s “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond,” along with a second volume published later. Lancaster also offers free resources to the public on his website.

Make a plan

Decide how ambitious you want to be.

Few people are going to be as dedicated to collecting the rain as Lancaster, said Hsin-I Chang, an assistant research professor in hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. She gives Lancaster credit for the practice’s popularity in Tucson.

Active harvesting systems use storage tanks, pipes and sometimes pumps. But simpler passive systems are low-tech and work by shaping the landscape with basins and other contouring alongside trees and other foliage. That allows rainwater to gather and then sink underground to recharge aquifers and nourish thirsty plants nearby.

“It’s very easy to get started with contouring,” Chang said, noting that active systems can be more expensive to set up and maintain.

Looking for more help?

If you need assistance, consider hiring a landscaper with experience in harvesting systems. You can also seek out master gardeners at local nurseries or home improvement stores.

And you can look to Lancaster for inspiration, tapping into the joy he expresses every time the rain falls.

For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

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For decades, fossil fuel companies championed the idea that climate change is solved through everyday personal habits — change your lightbulbs, recycle more, drive less — while they continued ramping up oil and gas production. BP even popularized the now‑ubiquitous carbon footprint calculator, nudging us into changing our behaviors rather than targeting the sources of the crisis.

A recent study found that people often misjudge which personal choices matter most. Many think recycling is the biggest fix, but it is actually cutting down on long flights, eating less meat, and even deciding whether to own a dog (pets have surprisingly large carbon footprints).

When people were shown the facts, they adjusted their intentions. 

But there is a catch: when climate action was framed only as a personal checklist, participants were less likely to support big collective steps, like voting for climate policy or joining a march.

This tension speaks to the myth of personal responsibility in climate change. 

Naomi Oreskes has written widely about how industries, from tobacco to oil, push this myth to delay real action. She is a professor of the history of science at Harvard University and co-author of the books “Merchants of Doubt” and “The Big Myth.”

She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss how we can shift the focus back to meaningful climate solutions.

 

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By MICHAEL PHILLIS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration was handed a win by a federal appeals court on Tuesday in its effort to freeze billions of dollars and terminate contracts for nonprofits to run a “green bank” aimed at financing climate-friendly projects.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency had blasted the Biden-era program as a waste of taxpayer money, tried to claw back funding that had already been distributed and accused the nonprofits of mismanagement.

A lower court said the EPA couldn’t support Administrator Lee Zeldin’s accusations and that the agency was wrong to try and end contracts with the nonprofits without substantiating allegations against them. On Tuesday, a divided federal appeals court ruled 2-1 in the agency’s favor, saying the EPA should not have been blocked from terminating the grants and that the arguments by the climate groups have no place in federal district court.

Instead, the case should be heard in a federal claims court that hears contract disputes, the appeals court ruled in a decision written by U.S. Appeals Court Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term. The decision was a major loss for the groups who said they can only seek monetary damages in district court. The groups in this case were seeking an order allowing them immediate access to their funds, which total about $16 billion.

“In sum, district courts have no jurisdiction to hear claims that the federal government terminated a grant agreement arbitrarily or with impunity. Claims of arbitrary grant termination are essentially contractual,” Rao wrote in a decision supported by Judge Gregory Katsas, also a Trump appointee.

The appeals court ruling said the nonprofits’ arguments belong in federal claims court because they dealt chiefly with the underlying contracts the groups held with the federal government, not matters of law or the Constitution.

Climate United Fund and other groups sued the EPA, Zeldin and Citibank, which held the grant money on behalf of the agency, saying they had illegally denied the groups access to funds awarded last year. They wanted access to those funds again, saying the freeze had paralyzed their work and jeopardized their basic operations.

In order to provide the parties with an opportunity to appeal, the decision won’t go into effect immediately.

Climate United CEO Beth Bafford said in a statement, “This is not the end of our road.”

“While we are disappointed by the panel’s decision, we stand firm on the merits of our case: EPA unlawfully froze and terminated funds that were legally obligated and disbursed,” Bafford said.

Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, said in her dissent that the groups provided evidence that the EPA disagreed with the program’s goals and tried to end it, while throwing around allegations against the groups that it couldn’t substantiate.

The EPA has damaged the green bank program “without presenting to any court any credible evidence or coherent reason that could justify its interference with plaintiffs’ money and its sabotage of Congress’s law,” Pillard wrote.

Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed reporting.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Visitors sometimes leave stuff behind at Great Lakes beaches. Broken pieces from plastic toys or bits of styrene from coolers can get lost in the sand.  

One of the most common pieces of plastic trash found are cigarette butts. 

Here’s some background on that. 

Four years ago, I interviewed people who volunteered through the Alliance for the Great Lakes Adopt-a-Beach program. They were cleaning up trash at Duck Lake State Park. 

Lake Michigan is connected to Duck Lake by a small channel. When the big lake gets high, plastic trash is pushed into the smaller lake by wind and waves. Then when the water recedes, a lot of the plastic gets caught in the vegetation on either side of that connecting channel. A lot of plastic. 

I visited the Duck Lake State Park beach again two years ago and did another microplastics story, which included information about recovering plastic as a recyclable resources for a line of outdoor wear. 

This year, I went back to Duck Lake for a third time. 

It had been raining earlier in the morning. When I arrived, it was a little cloudy, but there was a nice breeze coming off Lake Michigan. 

My plan was to spend an hour picking up trash along the road adjacent to the beach and on the beach itself. I wanted to see if there was a pattern of a lot of cigarette butts on the beach. 

I had a small bag for cigarette butts. I also took a larger garbage bag, because I figured I’d pick up the other trash I found.  

I was going to compare this beach with another one in the afternoon, so I decided to limit the time to one hour.  

In that time, I picked up 158 cigarette butts.  

I had thought I might find 60. Obviously, my estimate was way off. 

An employee at the park told me some people park their cars next to the beach to enjoy the view of Lake Michigan, and then toss their cigarette butts on the ground while they’re there. There’s a bit of irony there, right? 

The fibers in those cigarette filters can quickly break down into microplastics and that’s not good. 

“Wildlife can be ingesting it. It can end up in our drinking water source for 40 million people. It’s also just, you know, adding to the litter on the beach itself, of course, having impact on the enjoyment of the beach, things like that,” said Olivia Reda. She organizes beach cleanups for the Alliance for the Great Lakes. 

“Eighty-six percent of the pieces that we find in a given season are composed of either partially or fully of plastic. So, cigarette butts, again being part of that problem, you know, breaking down into small pieces, less than 5 millimeters, end up in the Great Lakes, or they can end up in the Great Lakes,” Reda said. 

Back in 2018, I interviewed Mary Kosuth, from Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis. She found microplastics in every municipal water supply her research checked in cities that pull water from the lakes.

She also found microplastics in Great Lakes beer, although the amount didn’t necessarily correspond with the microplastics in the tap water supply. That might be because the grains used in the beer often come in sacks made of woven polypropylene. 

She said even if plastic itself is inert, additives or chemicals absorbed from the environment could be harmful to human health. 

“We found in marine environments, at least, these plastic particles are very good at absorbing chemicals from the water,” Kosuth said, adding “So things like PCB, DDT, brominated flame retardants, things like these can actually form a coating on the outside of the plastic particles, which means that we would be ingesting higher amounts of that.” 

Is that really that much of an issue in the Great Lakes? A study out of the Rochester Institute of Technology estimates 22 million pounds of plastic debris enters the Great Lakes from the U.S. and Canada each year. 

 

My day on the road was not finished. I still had more trash to pick up. My next stop was Ludington State Park about an hour away. It’s a much bigger beach and has a lot more visitors.  

One of the things that could help is more bins for litter and recycling. That’s what Andrea Densham has found. She’s Senior Policy Advisor for the Alliance for the Great Lakes.  

She says scolding people who smoke for throwing their cigarette butts on the beach doesn’t help much. She says a different approach is better. For example, signs at the park encouraging people to join together to keep the beach clean are helpful. 

“Maybe the best answer is both signage, reminding folks that birds and children enjoy the beaches and that having cigarette butts is really damaging.” 

That is, damaging to both the experience at the beach and to the environment.  

She said having more trash cans at or near beaches would help. 

“There aren’t actually enough in many places, both recycling and litter bins, right by the beaches. And that causes some unnecessary eye-trash, I think.” 

Densham said receptacles for cigarettes and cigars are also needed.  

Overall she said all plastic trash is a major problem and society needs to eliminate single-use plastic products as much as possible. 

After wandering around Ludington State Park’s expansive beach for a while, I only found four cigarette butts. The road to the park runs along the beach for about three miles. There are places to park your car along the way. I found about a half-dozen cigarette butts at each of those places.  

I talked to a guy who’d been walking the beach and he said he only saw a couple of cigarette butts along the way. So, not a lot of that kind of trash compared to what I found at Duck Lake State Park earlier in the day. 

So, I tracked down the Park Manager, Jim Gallie, and asked him about that. 

“At least once per month, we have volunteers that come out to the park and they have segments of the beach that they walk and the pick up litter. They pick up cigarette butts, any debris that they find. Anything that they find that is larger than something they can handle, they report that to us. So, we work closely with the Friends of Ludington State Park on that. And that’s, I think at least one reason why are beaches are in pretty good shape,” he said. 

Not all the state, county, township, and city beaches have that extra help on a regular basis. 

But there are annual cleanups and a Great Lakes-wide effort is coming up. 

On September 20th is International Coastal Cleanup. The Alliance for the Great Lakes expect thousands of its Adopt-a-Beach volunteers to clear the beaches of trash at sites across the Great Lakes. I imagine that will include tens of thousands of cigarette butts. If you want to help, take latex or nitrile gloves with you. Picking up cigarette butts is kind of nasty and smelly. Trust me on that one. 

A couple strolls the beach near the main swimming area at Ludington State Park.

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Detroit is a manufacturing city and with this comes hazardous waste – toxic, reactive, flammable, and corrosive material that’s dangerous to people. 

So what happens to all this hazardous waste? Federal and State Laws require facilities to obtain a license to store, dispose or treat it. 

That includes EQ Detroit Inc., which operates a hazardous waste site in Midtown near the I-94 and I-75 interchange. The company’s license is up for renewal, and not all residents are in support. 

But public sentiment is not the law, said Tracy Kecskemeti at the public informational meeting on Aug. 13. She’s the acting materials management division director for the Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy. EGLE is the state regulator that oversees these hazardous waste sites. 

Producer Jack Filbrandt spoke to Detroit Documenters Colleen Cirrocco and Lynelle Herndon to learn more about what community members had to say. The next meeting on this issue is Sept. 4 at Tech Town. 

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