Lathrup Village is creating a new tree garden as part of a larger effort to keep its mature trees healthy, add more green spaces, and teach residents about how important trees are to the community.

The project is taking place on a triangular piece of public green space that once hosted the city’s first Arbor Day tree planting after the tree committee was formed.

Brandon Wynn, a resident of Lathrup Village is a certified tree expert and chair of the tree committee. He explained that the long-term plan includes planting different types of trees, putting up signs to educate people, and eventually adding benches and space for community activities.

The city is mainly focusing on planting trees native to Michigan, like white oak, swamp white oak, black gum, and American hornbeam.

They are also thinking about including some non-native trees that can handle changing weather patterns and road salt.

Some trees like ginkgo, dawn redwood, river birch, and a donated tulip tree have already been planted there.

Bahm says the community will consider adding a pavilion or pergola, flower beds, shrubs, and evergreen trees. The committee is funding these efforts through grants, donations, and partnerships with the community to gradually develop the arboretum.

Jill Bahm, a planning expert working with Giffels Webster and serving as Lathrup Village’s planning consultant, explained that trees and other green spaces can help manage stormwater, reduce runoff and erosion, and improve air and water quality.

She says that by including the tree committee’s work in the city’s updated master and recreation plans, they can ensure this project fits into Lathrup Village and support future projects and grants.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

The nonprofit Little Traverse Conservancy wants to purchase a 160 acre lot of forest near Harbor Springs and create a wildlife corridor.

The current owners are on board. They’ve allowed public access to the land for years, and plan to donate an additional 20 acres to the organization.

Emily Hughes, chief development officer for the conservancy, says that they’ve raised $2.7 million of the $3 million goal. Many supporters are apart of the local community, who have been using the property with permission of the owners.

“As of today, 69 families have supported this effort,” says Hughes. “So this is now an opportunity to include even more people who want to help protect this land forever.”

The land is adjacent to 80 acres of public trails. After the purchase, Little Traverse Conservancy plans to add new trails and build a parking area.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeks to approve a request from Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to redesignate what qualifies as safe ozone levels in the Detroit region. 

The change would redesignate the region as meeting federal ozone standards after years of strict standards.

EPA Regional Administrator Anne Vogel says the change is partially due to reductions in air pollution. “Redesignations lead to faster and more predictable air permitting processes, while existing pollution controls continue to drive improvements in air quality,” Vogel says. 

Environmental advocates like Nick Leonard disagree. Leonard is executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center.

He says ozone air pollution in the region is still above the health-based standard set by the EPA. 

“It’s been consistently above the air quality standard for the past 10 years,” Leonard says. “The EPA is nonetheless justifying its decision to find that air quality is attaining the standard… because they’re pinning the blame for a few high ozone days on wildfire smoke from the last few years.”

Officials say the change will ease the permitting process for industrial projects, which could help the region’s economy. 

Public comment on the proposal is open until Aug. 27.

Officials in Oakland County and Pontiac are celebrating the completion of a $3 million renovation of Pontiac Oaks Park, turning a once-neglected city park into a cleaner, more welcoming place for families to enjoy. 

The park, previously called Hawthorne Park, had problems with illegal trash dumping and run down facilities. Oakland County Parks Planning Supervisor Simon Rivers explains that the county worked closely with local residents to find out what improvements the community really wanted. 

“There was a lot of trash and illegal dumping,” Rivers said. “The fishing pier was in bad shape, and the playground was falling apart in several spots.” 

The county partnered with the city to restore the area. Pontiac will keep ownership of the park, while the county takes over maintenance and construction of new facilities. 

Rivers mentions that upgrades include fixing up the popular fishing pier, renovating the bathrooms, adding new playground equipment, and expanding the disc golf course. 

“We’re making improvements that the community actually wants to see, instead of trying to do things we think are best,” Rivers said. 

Pontiac Oaks is one of several parks being renewed across the county. 

Rivers also says there are plans to improve parks in Southfield, Madison Heights, and Waterford.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

People who’ve been putting up with thick, smelly clumps of algae in Lake St. Clair may get some relief soon.

Macomb County has contracted two marine excavators to start removing muck from parts of the Lake in the fall. Each needs to get permits from the state and federal governments, which have jurisdiction over the lake.

The organisms, known collectively as Microseira wollei, have been growing on the bottom of the lake since about the mid 2010s. 

Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller says they start by forming tiny balls about as big as a person’s thumbnail.

“And when you have an onshore breeze, all these little balls roll up onto the shore, which doesn’t sound like much until there are literally billions of them,” she says. 

The algae form mats on the water that can be several feet thick. Miller says it keeps growing and begins to vegetate over time.

“It almost looks like land, but it’s not,” she says. “Now if that’s happened to your boat well, whether you’re a resident, a residential property owner, or whether you’re a marina owner, you can imagine the negative impact.”

The three-year pilot project will focus on three specific areas where water is stagnant. One is near Veterans Memorial Park in St. Clair Shores. The other two are Campau Bay and the marina at Hidden Cove condominiums in Harrison Township.

The Michigan Legislature appropriated $880,000 to begin removing the muck, which officials will study over the next three years. Miller says she hopes to find a long-term solution.

“We all know as soon as we dredge it, it will begin to come back,” she says. “But will it come back in a month, a year? We’re sort of in the learning process.”

Republican state Representative Alicia St. Germaine and Democratic state Senator Kevin Hertel worked together to put the project in the state budget. Miller says that kind of bipartisan support is critical to the cleanup’s success.

“The water doesn’t know if it’s a Republican or a Democrat or an independent or Green Party or whatever,” she says. “It’s just something that all of us live here, we all have to solve this together.”

Miller says it’ll take a lot more money and time to remove and manage algae in the lake. She hopes state and federal agencies step up to protect the waterway.

Michigan’s air quality declined dangerously earlier this month due to wildfire smoke from Minnesota and Canada. 

Pollutants in the smoke can have long-term health consequences for humans, pets, and wildlife. However, for trees themselves the health effects are less consequential.  

Wayne State University forestry professor Dan Kashian says that while our tree canopy is important for converting carbon dioxide into life-supporting oxygen, days or even weeks of heavy smoke plumes is unlikely to harm Michigan’s trees. He says the main effect would be on the amount of sunlight on smokey days. 

Kashian says,  “Trees need to photosynthesize…anything that affects the amount of light that they’re receiving is going to affect how well they can grow.”

According to Kashian, harmful pollutants from wildfire smoke can settle on leaves but are often washed away by rain without lasting harm to the tree’s health.  

“But when you’re talking about a couple of days of heavy smoke like this, especially when it’s hot, it can actually help them because they don’t really like really high temperatures either,” Kashian says.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Wildfire smoke at times last week made Detroit’s air quality the worst in the world — that’s in a place that consistently gets terrible grades for heavy pollution.

So, how is our health impacted by poor air quality?

Dr. Garen Wolff is an allergy and immunology physician at the Detroit Medical Center. She says people with asthma are having to use inhalers too often.  

“It should be (used) less than twice a week, but when we have poor air quality for long periods of time, I have patients using their rescue inhaler every day and that’s not healthy for the lungs to do,” says Wolff.

Dr. Wolff spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about the health consequences of breathing smoke-filled air.  

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

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Over the past four months, northern Michigan has experienced a series of extreme weather events.

In March, an ice storm caused tens of thousands of utility customers to lose power. In April, record-breaking precipitation caused rivers and lakes to flood, ripping apart roads. Now, smoke from Canadian and Minnesota wildfires has been creating air quality alerts. 

Before the smoke blew to metro Detroit, it hit northern Michigan first, choking that part of the state with a blanket of smoke. 

Climate change is affecting everyone, but effects can very depending on the location. What are things like for residents of northern Michigan? And, how are they preparing for future extreme weather events?

Vivian La is a climate solutions reporter for Interlochen Public Radio and Grist. She spoke about the northern Michiganders trying to adapt to climate change — and those who are trying to maintain the status quo — with The Metro’s Sam Corey.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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

Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Oakland County Parks and Bloomfield Hills Schools are working together to turn natural areas into public parks.

Officials say that this partnership is designed to protect the sites for the long term, give more residents easier access and keep school programs going.

Oakland County Parks Director Chris Ward and Bloomfield Hills Schools Superintendent Rick West say the plan will make the land more open to the community while preserving a special natural area in a suburban neighborhood.

Since Bloomfield Hills doesn’t have any public parks, this change is a big deal for local residents. Sites like the Johnson Nature Center may eventually connect to walking paths, including a safe route through the city. 

Students already use these sites for their lessons. A fifth-grade class took a field trip to the Johnson Nature Center recently to learn about the local watershed.

West says the center is a valuable natural area in the midst of the highly developed community. “It’s… nature at its best, right here, nestled in Bloomfield Township, and our students get to benefit from it. Our community gets to benefit from it, and that’s the richness of the partnership [with Oakland County Parks],” he says.

This agreement is a teamwork effort between the school district and the parks department, aimed at benefiting both recreation and education for students, local residents, and the entire county.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy announced a statewide Air Quality Alert for Wednesday, July 15. 

Smoke from Canadian wildfires is expected to spread across the state. This will likely cause higher levels of air pollution which can be harmful to health.

EGLE stated that thick smoke from wildfires north of Minnesota will start reaching the Upper Peninsula overnight and then spread south across the Lower Peninsula during the day and into the evening Wednesday.

Dr. Youcheng Liu, who is with Wayne State University, said people should check the Air Quality Index (AQI) before going outside.

“Even moderate levels are a concern. But if the AQI goes above 100, it’s considered heavy pollution, which everyone should pay attention to.”

Health officials recommend that residents, especially children, older adults, pregnant women, and people with asthma, COPD, heart disease, or other breathing problems, should avoid strenuous outdoor activities while the alert is in effect.

Liu explained that the main worry is the presence of PM2.5, tiny particles from wildfire smoke that can penetrate deep into the lungs and increase the chances of lung and heart problems.

To stay safe, Liu suggests limiting outdoor time, avoiding intense exercise outside, keeping windows and doors closed, using indoor air circulation instead of bringing in outdoor air, and running air purifiers if you have them. 

He says those who need to spend time outside should consider wearing a mask rated N95 or higher for better protection.

Michigan residents can check local air conditions on the EGLE MiAir Quality Index Dashboard, AirNow, weather apps that show AQI numbers, or by signing up for Michigan’s EnviroFlash alert system.

Hundreds of thousands of Michiganders lost power over the weekend of July Fourth, prompting a conversation about the fragility of the electrical grid in the face of climate change.

Regulators have approved rate hikes to facilitate infrastructure updates, but modernization of the scale needed will take years. Despite the fact that consumers won’t reap the benefits immediately, residents are having to pay for the upgrades now.

Democratic lawmakers have proposed solutions: Fair compensation for power outages, guaranteeing improvement of utility services, ensuring customers aren’t contributing to CEO bonuses and more. But these bills are gaining little to no traction, often deprived of a hearing.

Why can’t politics fix this issue? What does it say about those we’ve elected in the state legislature?

Colin Jackson is a reporter for the Michigan Public Radio Network. He says Republicans are concerned with rolling back clean energy standards, while Democrats prioritize regulation.

“I think when you talk about lowering energy costs and lowering power costs and utility costs, that is something that you do see both sides of the aisle talking about quite a bit,” says Jackson. “It’s just the approach to it in general varies drastically.”

Jackson joined The Metro’s Robyn Vincent to discuss why gridlock in Lansing has meant a less stable electrical grid.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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

Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Dearborn was named a Tree City USA for the 39th year.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud says its a pride point for the city. “We’re trying to take it an extra step, ensuring that we offer all of our residents a free tree in their easements, and even if they’d like a free treatment for their personal property,” he says.

Benefits

Hammoud says the trees help with flood mitigation in the city.

“The more trees you put in the ground, the more water it can absorb, helping prevent that water from entering your water and sewer system, which helps increase your capacity,” he says.

City reprenstatives have been planting about 1,000 trees a year, he says.

What goes up…

Hammoud says road construction and storms can sometimes lead to some trees coming down.

“Sometimes a tree will be removed if you have major road construction, and you do chop off some of the root system, and then you’d no longer have a tree that can be there safely, where a windstorm, especially if there’s many leaves in the tree, can get picked up along with that windstorm,” he shares.

He says there are efforts to educate residents about the benefit of planting and saving trees. The city has also caught up on a backlog of taking down dead and deceased trees from 1,200-1,300 to about 100 trees. 

Setting trees up for success

The city mostly plants trees that are 3-4 years old, and works with the Crimboli Nursery & Landscapes to get their trees.

Every tree comes with a 1-2 year warranty, but residents are asked to water the trees.

“If the wooden stakes are still on the tree that are helping keeping it up, that means the tree has a warranty for those first two years, ensuring that can kind of grow out of its newborn phase,” he says.

Dearborn residents can request a free tree in their easement by visiting dearborn.gov/trees. 

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

The city of Midland is the first in the state to use AI to inventory their tree canopy.

Midland partnered with the Davey Tree company and used special software to assess more than 30,000 urban trees.

Midland’s Director of Parks and Recreation Marcie Post says the TreeKeeper system uses a type of 3D scanning technology that is integrated with AI. 

“And what we do with this system is it helps us track where our trees are, species, health, basically everything we need to know about our trees. So that if something were to happen let’s say if we were to get a pest we have an  idea of where that pest is, what trees it may affect, and so on and so forth.”

She says the city is dedicated to the health of its trees.

“We know what value trees bring both in aesthetic appeal but also financially we know the value of a tree so we’re just really excited to be able to show our residents how important we think it is and really to continue education on trees and the importance of trees in our environment.”

Post says the software detects information about the species, circumference and health of each tree, giving the city a baseline for management. Midland’s trees have suffered from pests like the Emerald Ash Borer and this software can find gaps in the tree canopy that need to be filled. 

The city’s trees were scanned last summer and data analysis will begin this summer.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Researchers say the composition of Michigan’s forests may change in the future.

For the past 28 years, scientists from Michigan State University have taken a census of seedlings from 10 species in the Manistee National Forest.

Bailey McNichols is a postdoctoral scholar at MSU. She says their annual seedling census tracks responses to change.

“Forests are likely to exist in this location and they are likely to be resilient to the changing climate but we might just see a transition in the composition of these forests.”

McNichols says researchers predict Michigan’s growing season will become warmer and wetter, changing which species of trees will thrive in the state.

“And if those are the conditions which are predicted to exist in the future then it’s likely that we’re going to see more of five different of the ten species which were more Red Maples, more Ironwood, more Black Cherry, and more Red Oak and White Oak.”

McNichols says in contrast, Sugar Maple, Basswood and White Ash are among the species expected to decline.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Thirteen years ago, a local businessman and an agriculture expert joined forces to change a chunk of Detroit’s east side.  They started an experiment, planting thousands of trees in empty lots, in an effort to force out blight.  That experiment is called Hantz Woodlands.

You’ll see some of the results if you drive up McClellan or Belvidere, just north of Kercheval.  Mike Score is the President of Hantz Farms, the company that owns and manages the woodlands.  He spoke with WDET’s Jerome Vaughn. 

Score says the company has surpassed the goals it originally set in a deal with the city.

“We said we tear down at least 50 dangerous structures and we torn down 70.  We said we’d plant at least 15,000 trees and we’ve planted over 40,000.  And we said we’d mow every three weeks, and we’re mowing on a two-week cycle right now.”

Score says three trees have helped transform neighborhoods.  There was initial skepticism, and even organized opposition in the early days of the project.  But Score says those obstacles have faded away once residents in the area saw the effects of the project.

“Our neighbors in the beginning thought that our trees were a mystery.  They said, ‘we don’t want trees, we want neighbors.’  But as they’ve seen the trees grow and the neighborhood become cleaner, safer, more beautiful, we’ve actually had neighbors ask us to keep trees near their homes because they think they’re beautiful and really add to the quality of life.”

Hantz Woodlands lots are located in an area of Detroit south of Mack and east of Van Dyke.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Nearly all of Michigan is under an extreme heat warning or advisory as we approach Independence Day weekend, with the heat index — what it actually feels like outside— exceeding 105 degrees Fahrenheit in many places. 

In a heat wave with high humidity, like this one, babies, children and the elderly are at a higher risk of heat-related illness. Knowing the right precautions to take can save lives.

Dr. Phillip Levy is an emergency physician and professor at Wayne State University’s School of Medicine. He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to explain how the body cools itself and describe essential preventative measures to take during a heatwave. 

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.

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‘Tis the season for severe weather in Michigan.

That means it’s also the season when DTE officials say fallen trees can hit power lines and lead to outages.

Only about a third of the utility’s electric grid is buried underground.      

So DTE’s Director of Vegetation Management and Operations, Bill Hutchinson, says trimming trees near power lines is a priority.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Michigan has seen 22 confirmed tornadoes 2026, including three in Metro Detroit.

The National Weather Service has issued more than 50 tornado warnings statewide this year. Joel Fritsma has tracked every one of them online.

Fritsma is the chief meteorologist for Michigan Storm Chasers. The website launched in 2022 and hired Fritsma straight out of Central Michigan University, where he studied meteorology. He says their goal is to fill communication gaps between NWS and the public so people watching online have time to take shelter. 

“Every time there’s a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning in the state, we’d be covering it live,” he says. “Since 2024, we haven’t missed a single warning.”

It’s “go” time

Fristma says he and his team start live streaming as soon as the weather service issues its first warnings for any severe event. And they don’t stop until the last warning comes out.

“Sometimes, it’s upwards of 10 to 11 hours,” he says. “It just depends on how long the storms want to go.”

And it doesn’t matter what time it is. Fritsma was live streaming when a brief tornado hit Lincoln Park between 2 and 3 a.m. on April 15. He doesn’t mind.

“I kind of like taking the night shift,” he says. “We always have at least one person on call throughout the day.”

Fristma says when the weather is fine, he’s still working full-time.

“We’re looking at the forecast multiple days in advance,” he says. “We host live streams prior to an event so that people can ask questions.”

A lot of people tune in

Fritsma says the website’s staff has grown from a handful of people to about 30 since 2022. And he says its audience has grown, too.

“We have over a million followers between all of our platforms,” he says. 

People can watch and interact with the live streams on Facebook and YouTube. And soon, they’ll be able to download a new mobile app.

Fritsma says the app will allow followers to get live streams on their phones and let them report storm damage.

“We have Messenger, we have Discord, there’s so many options,” he says. “And that information will be very crucial when we send it to the National Weather Service.”

The app is set to launch this summer.

The Grow Hamtramck program in the city of Hamtramck is hoping to plant a thousand trees in four years.

Community and Economic Development Director for the City of Hamtramck Isabel Allaway says it’s a part of a grant-funded urban forestry project to increase the city’s tree canopy and increase shade in the densest city in Michigan. 

“We did some inventory in 2019 to determine what available public planting spaces there were in our city, and we pursued this grant funding and were awarded it after we found over 1,200 available planting spaces at that time,” she says.

Allaway says the funding will focus on generating requests from residents to determine where to plant 1,000 trees in the city. 

Contractors, which include an arborist team and people who plant and maintain the trees in their first year of life, take care of the rest. 

“We’re about a year and a half into what is a four year program, and we’ve planted about 400 trees so far of that 1,000 trees,” she shares.

Careful planning

Allaway says the city works with an arborist team and the Davey Resource Group, the urban forestry program coordinator for this project, to determine which trees should or should not be planted in the city.

“We want to make sure that we’re maintaining species diversity and that we’re not planting too many trees of the same variety in close proximity to each other to maintain the health of the urban tree canopy,” she says.

Allaway says they the city is planting trees on the public right of way that are 3 feet to 5 feet wide, between sidewalks and streets. That’s to minimize cracks, sidewalk disruption or from trees not going too far over people’s homes.

“So we’re planning about 70% small trees in those spaces, and the residential right of ways on those residential streets are really our highest priority for generating requests,” she expresses.

Growing benefits

She says along with increasing the tree canopy, planting more trees reduces the heat index, provides shade and increases the feeling of safety for pedestrians and cars. 

“A tree-lined street reduces the speed at which someone will drive a vehicle down that street, because it narrows the sight line,” she explains.

Allaway says it also increases property values for homeowners.

“We’re really conscious that our residents live in a city that’s surrounded by sort of a collar of industrial properties, and so trying to make sure that we’re mitigating those impacts for our residents is really important to us,” she says.

Allaway says the trees should also help with absorbing stormwater and groundwater, due to the flooding in Hamtramck.

People can sign up for a tree or call the Community and Economic Development Department at 313-800-5233 extension 818 for an over-the-phone intake. They can also email treerequests@hamtramckcity.gov or fill out a survey.

The survey is available in Arabic and Bangla.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.