A judge spent nearly four hours Monday listening and sorting through arguments on the future of the state’s effort to shut down a 4.5-mile segment of an Enbridge petroleum pipeline that runs along the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac.
Ingham County Circuit Judge James Jamo’s first decision is whether it is his job to make a decision. If the answer is yes, then Jamo will decide whether the state has the authority to revoke an easement that allows Enbridge to operate Line 5 on the bottom of the Great Lakes.
The case in Ingham County is a jumble of state and federal lawsuits over the continued operation of the pipeline in the environmentally sensitive juncture of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, even as Enbridge moves ahead with plans to encase it in a tunnel under the lakebed.
“This is about public safety under the common law public trust doctrine,” argued Assistant Attorney General Dan Bock during the online arguments before Ingham County Circuit Judge James Jamo.
This six-year-long challenge is part of the hodgepodge of legal actions surrounding Line 5 and Enbridge’s efforts to allay concerns with a project to encase the line in a concrete tunnel.
Enbridge has been trying to move the arguments to federal courts, where its chances are arguably better than state courts presided over by judges selected by Michigan voters.
“Enbridge has deliberately caused years of delay through procedural tactics, attempting to block Michigan courts from deciding a critical issue that directly impacts its residents,” Nessel said in a statement released by her office following the arguments.
But Enbridge argues the case has national and international implications that are bigger than one state’s parochial interests. Enbridge runs a sweeping network of energy pipelines. Line 5 runs through Michigan and Wisconsin on the U.S. side of an international border and into Ontario and Quebec on the Canadian side. Portions of the pipeline go through tribal lands.
“We believe these are federal issues that take precedence, and this has become really an international controversy at this point,” said Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy. Enbridge’s attorney also argued the state has no standing since it is only arguing prospective future harm.
Enbridge’s pipeline network could be part of the solution to resolve moving petroleum products without using a line that in a worst-case scenario would spill hundreds of thousands of gallons of petroleum product into the Great Lakes, said Andrew Buchsbaum, an attorney who filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation and the Great Lakes Business Network.
But, he said, first the court would have to agree the state has shown the potential for an environmental catastrophe is enough to establish standing to sue.
“Once a court makes that finding, then procedurally, the next phase of the case is, what’s the remedy?” said Buchsbaum. “That is, is it an immediate shutdown? Is it a shutdown over time to allow Enbridge to try to find some other way of rerouting the oil and gas around the straits or around Michigan?”
Judge Jamo said he will issue a written opinion soon, but did not give a specific timeline. Whatever Jamo decides can be appealed to a higher court.
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The historic restart of a shuttered nuclear power plant is planned for later this year on the shores of Lake Michigan, and a northern Michigan energy cooperative is playing a major role.
Last fall, the Biden administration finalized $1.3 billion in grants to two rural power cooperatives, as part of efforts to reopen the Palisades Nuclear Plant in southwest Michigan’s Covert Township.
Of that, Wolverine Power Cooperative in Cadillac will receive about $650 million and Indiana-based Hoosier Energy will get $675 million as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America program, which aims to help rural electric cooperatives transition to clean energy.
The state of Michigan is also chipping in, allocating $300 million for the restart, which is expected to bring back 800 megawatts of power — enough for some 800,000 homes.
Wolverine’s agreement with the plant’s owner, Holtec International, means it will buy over half of that power.
Nuclear history
Palisades first opened in 1971 and shut down in May 2022, citing financial reasons. The revival of the plant, which had begun decommissioning, would be a first in United States history. Now Holtec, which bought the plant with plans to decommission it, wants to reopen it later this year.
The plant provided decades of work for those nearby, and the planned restart has garnered support from some, including local officials who say it will help the economy. But there are ongoing concerns from activists and people who live in the region about the environmental and health risks it could pose.
Nuclear power also divides environmental groups and policymakers, though perhaps not presidential administrations. The Biden administration threw its weight behind nuclear and President Donald Trump’s choice for energy secretary signaled support for nuclear in his confirmation hearings.
Nominee Chris Wright, the executive of an oil and gas company, has a background in nuclear energy and has said he supports expanding it, along with geothermal energy and liquefied natural gas, though there may be resistance from others on Trump’s team.
Up North impact
Covert Township, where Palisades is located, is hours south of northern Michigan. But Wolverine Power Cooperative officials in Cadillac say when they heard about the possibility of the plant reopening, they acted quickly.
“We made a cold call to the owner of the power plant to say, ‘We’re here in Michigan. We have rural customers that need long term, stable, affordable, reliable [power], and want decarbonized power,’” Wolverine Chief Operating Officer Zach Anderson said during an interview with IPR in October.
Wolverine is a generation cooperative, so it buys or creates electricity and then transmits that to members like northern Michigan’s Cherryland Electric Cooperative, to sell to customers.
Anderson said the plant’s reopening could allow electric cooperatives to reach the state’s climate goals a decade ahead of time while maintaining steady prices.
Nuclear power is considered clean energy under the state’s 2023 climate legislation, which requires a 100% clean energy standard by 2040. That doesn’t prohibit utilities from operating fossil fuel power sources, but the power they sell to customers must be carbon free.
“Palisades will allow us to meet that target sooner,” Anderson said, helping the co-op provide all clean energy to its members by 2030.
While the cooperative is obligated to help its member utilities meet state requirements, Anderson said Wolverine itself isn’t required to do so, since it’s regulated by the feds, not the state. It also plans to continue operating seven natural gas plants and selling that energy back to the regional grid.
Anderson said Palisades is a “perfect fit” for Wolverine, as a current nuclear contract with a different provider expires in 2028 and more fossil fuels are phased out.
And it has substantial support. Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration has backed the plant for years, and state officials wrote a letter to the Biden administration in support of funding the co-op’s push for nuclear power.
Map of Wolverine’s distribution.
Push for nuclear
Renewed interest in nuclear power comes amid increased demand for electricity from things like data centers and solar facilities and efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
A common argument in its favor is that nuclear is necessary to supplement less reliable renewable energy coming from the sun and wind.
Matthew Memmott, a professor of chemical engineering at Brigham Young University who studies nuclear energy, said states like Michigan need to have what’s called baseload power plants — which are always on — and nuclear power is one way to meet that need and provide carbon-free energy.
And the future of nuclear power could involve smaller reactors. According to the Department of Energy, small modular reactors, or SMRs, are central to developing more nuclear power; they have smaller footprints and can be built in more diverse locations. Holtec wants to build two in Michigan by 2031, adding another 600 megawatts of power.
Pat O’Brien, Holtec’s director of government affairs and communications, said the company has begun preparations for the SMRs, including test borings and some land clearing.
“We feel 2030 is realistic, provided funding is obtained,” he wrote in an email to IPR.
Allison Macfarlane is a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver who directs its public policy school and chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012 to 2014. She said the possibility of smaller reactors has generated much excitement.
But ambitious timelines for SMR development seem unrealistic to her. For one, none are currently operating in the United States. And Macfarlane said taking them from design to production is a long and costly process.
“All of this takes time, and so I would imagine to really get anywhere with some of these reactors, certainly to the commercial level, you’re looking at over a decade, probably two decades,” she said.
Still, the potential for such advancements has caught the attention of energy co-ops across the country, according to Memmott with Brigham Young University, because they could provide another option to buy power produced locally or regionally.
“The advantages to that are now you have distributed electricity generation,” Memmott said. “You don’t have to overbuy these massive plants. You don’t have to figure out how to shift electricity all around, which is kind of a complicated process.”
Divisive debate
There are few energy issues more galvanizing than nuclear power.
Palisades faced various problems when it was running. Federal regulators identified safety violations over the years. And it also dealt with shut downs, like in 2013, when it went offline for several weeks after leaking dozens of gallons of diluted radioactive water into Lake Michigan.
Kevin Kamps, a Kalamazoo-based radioactive waste specialist with the group Beyond Nuclear, doesn’t agree with state laws or scientists calling nuclear power clean, and thinks the restart is ill advised.
“This is unprecedented risk taking that they’re talking about now. They’ve never done this before. It’s not needed,” he said. “Renewables are really the way to go, not resurrecting very problematic nuclear power plants.”
Kamps said concerns around reliability can be addressed through investments in energy storage and energy efficiency, “yet we’re going to waste vast amounts of public money on this Palisades restart scheme.” He pointed to other researchers who have argued that nuclear power is a dangerous use of money and time, and that it’s possible for the world to run solely on sun, wind and water.
Beyond Nuclear has been an outspoken critic of Holtec, and was part of a coalition that signed a letter to former U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm opposing the Palisades restart. Among longstanding concerns are radioactive contamination and nuclear waste storage. (At the Palisades site it’s currently stored in steel and concrete casks.)
Along with worries over the plant’s infrastructure, Kamps said accidents at other sites show the risks of running nuclear plants, like the partial meltdown of Fermi I in Monroe County in 1966.
Financial struggles contributed to shutdowns of nuclear plants in the U.S. in recent years, as things like natural gas production and wind expanded. Critics say nuclear is far too expensive to continue investing in. Others, like the public policy nonprofit the Mackinac Center have argued that costs associated with nuclear power are misunderstood and exacerbated by policy decisions.
Some environmental groups, including representatives with Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities in Traverse City and Sierra Club Michigan, hold that the government should focus on things like expanding renewables and developing energy storage instead.
Still, nuclear power made up a quarter of Michigan’s electric generation as of October, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, while renewable energy made up over 13%. Supporters of the restart say the Palisades plant will provide a steady source of carbon-free energy to supplement things like wind and solar.
Macfarlane, the University of British Columbia professor, thinks nuclear will play a major role in the coming decades.
“It’s really important. I mean, it’s a fifth of the nation’s electricity supply. I do understand some of the concerns,” she said, but “I think climate change just poses the bigger threat by far. We need to get off of fossil [fuels].”
What’s next
Before reopening Palisades, Holtec has to get approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must assess the facility, including its safety and infrastructure. As Michigan Public reported, regulators have called Holtec’s timeline “very, very demanding.”
For instance, inspectors are looking at issues with the plant’s steam generators, which might affect the timeline for the restart.
“We did tube inspections on those to ensure that they’re in good working condition for restart. We found some degradation in some of those tubes — more than we anticipated,” said Holtec’s O’Brien. “So what we had to do there was come up with a repair plan,” which they talked about at a recent public meeting.
If Palisades didn’t restart, Wolverine Cooperative wouldn’t lose any money, but it would take longer to reach the 100% clean energy standard, said Anderson, the COO.
“We have a good head start on what we need to meet those long term objectives toward the members’ obligations, toward that 2040 goal,” he said. Still, “it’ll take a lot more solar to replace something like Palisades.”
Beyond Nuclear, meanwhile, has intervened in the NRC’s licensing process for the restart. Kamps said if necessary, they will take the matter to federal court.
“We’ll fight it as long as we can, till the last opportunity,” Kamps said. “We feel that strongly about it.”
What happens under the Trump administration remains to be seen. But last year saw bipartisan support for legislation supporting nuclear power, according to Barry Rabe, a professor emeritus of environmental policy at the University of Michigan.
Michigan has a long history of nuclear power, Rabe said, and the state government “has become much more receptive in the last few years to sustain or expand nuclear, in large part because it is a non-carbon form of energy, even though it raises other environmental issues and concerns.”
More plants could reopen amid a resurgence of interest. And Rabe said this is one issue where the state could have “substantial latitude and support from the federal government, possibly without major changes from the Biden years to the Trump years.”
The recommendation is part of a new report on how to monitor microplastics in the Great Lakes, released by the Great Lakes Science Advisory Board at the International Joint Commission, an organization that helps the U.S. and Canada tackle water quality issues together.
“The Great Lakes have a lot of microplastic. There’s absolutely no doubt,” said Chelsea Rochman, an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Toronto and an author of the report. “The amount of microplastics that I see in urban areas — for example, in Toronto — is striking. It is much higher than I see in the open ocean, or even in the ocean in urban areas. And the amount that we see in our fish, including in our sport fish, is also striking.”
The designation would add microplastics to a list of contaminants like PCBs and mercury that both countries are required to monitor under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
“We have a lot of policies on both sides of the border,” Rochman said. “But we can do better, specifically for microplastics.”
Microplastic particles can negatively impact aquatic organisms, ranging from stress on an organism’s diet to its reproductive system. Emerging research also shows that microplastics can leach toxic chemicals into organisms.
“We see hundreds of particles in the gut of an individual fish here in the Toronto Harbor … and we also see tens or dozens of particles in the muscle, which is the filet, the part that we eat,” Rochman said. “We also know that the concentrations we see in some parts of the Great Lakes are above those that we consider to be a threshold for risk, meaning that the organisms now in our Great Lakes are exposed to levels that could be harmful.”
But there’s currently no coordinated regional effort to monitor microplastics across the Great Lakes. That would change if microplastics are added to the binational list of contaminants.
Figure from the Final Report of the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Science Advisory Board Work Group on Microplastics.
The new report lays out a framework for making widespread monitoring possible, like a standardized definition of microplastics and standardized methods for sampling and reporting microplastic pollution.
Right now, most data comes from piecemeal research across different academic institutions.
“If we’re all sampling in the same way and doing the analysis in the same way … we can compare apples to apples, as opposed to trying to compare apples to oranges,” Rochman said. “If we’re monitoring in such a way that’s not standardized, it’s possible the data won’t have the same trust … as we make decisions that may change how businesses operate, how people operate, et cetera.”
The report provides the tools to run long-term, consistent microplastics monitoring programs as opposed to the disparate data that come from academia.
Officials from the U.S. and Canada first began considering adding microplastics to the list of “chemicals of mutual concern” in 2023. There’s no timeline for when they’ll make a decision.
Funding for much of the work of monitoring pollutants on the U.S. side of the border comes from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. That money is approved through 2026. An extension of that funding through 2031 has passed the U.S. Senate but still needs House approval.
On Feb. 12, the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Science Advisory Board will hold a public webinar to discuss their report on the state of science on microplastics. Register here.
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Since the 1970s, our energy bills have been going up. Year after year, utility companies like DTE have been asking for rate hikes. But it’s not just them — utilities nationwide have been raising rates.
The increasing energy cost comes at an interesting time in our country’s history. Many companies, states and organizations are trying to switch to clean energy sources. The state of Michigan is tasked with operating only on clean energy sources by 2040. That matters because utility companies supply most of the energy we use from natural gas.
Today on The Metro, we discussed what it would look like for our utilities to run entirely on renewable energy and how to bring the cost down for consumers.
Richard Hirsh, a history professor at Virginia Tech who’s written multiple books on American utilities, joined the discussion. He says the cost of electricity wasn’t always so high, and technological advances between the late 1800s and 1970 even decreased the cost.
“As these generators and turbines got bigger, the unit cost, the cost per kilowatt hour of electricity, declined,” Hirsh said.“And regulatory commissions allowed utility companies to charge less or lower and lower rates for electricity.”
Solar projects are currently underway in several Detroit neighborhoods. The arrays owned by DTE will be used to power city buildings. Legislative and Political Director of the Michigan Sierra Club Christy McGillivray said one of the things we’re missing is community-owned solar. Attempts at making legislative changes were made, but it faced pushback from energy companies.
“Utilities, specifically DTE and Consumers because they’re the biggest investor owned utilities, they roadblocked it the entire way,” McGillivray said. “And we were told multiple times that we were not going to see an expansion of distributed generation and community solar because of the amount of power and money that DTE has in Lansing.”
Managing Director of the Rocky Mountain Institute Mark Dyson added that public utility commissions play a crucial role in the transition to renewable energy and keeping costs low.
“I think a lot of important action can take place at public utility commissions or public service commissions across the country to both empower consumers, like I was just saying, help let consumers save money by using their home energy devices and also protect consumers and shield them from volatile fossil fuel prices that — especially on cold days like today — can soar,” Dyson said.
DTE did not respond to requests from The Metro’s producers to join the conversation.
Use the media player above to hear the full conversation, plus other stories from “The Metro.”
More headlines from The Metro on Jan. 21, 2024:
The city of Detroit has been working to build a friendly landscape for electric vehicles. This month, the city and the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments received $15 million in federal funding to build a network of EV charging stations. Deputy Chief of the Office of Mobility and Innovation Tony Geara joined the show to explain Detroit’s efforts.
“One of Them Days” is currently one of the highest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes and a top selling movie at the box office. It’s also directed by Detroiter Lawrence Lamont. He sat down with Host Tia Graham to discuss Michigan’s film incentives, being prepared for the moment and how Detroit influenced his love for writing.
The Lions were dominant this year. Their offense was nearly unstoppable and their defense battled through broken bones and season ending injuries to do just enough. On Saturday, their dominant season came to a sad grinding halt. The Lions lost to the Washington commanders 45-31 at Ford Field. Detroit Free Press Sports Columnist Shawn Windsor returns to walk us through the final chapter of the Lions’ season and to look ahead to next year.
You can join the conversation on The Metro by calling 313-577-1019 or leaving us an Open Mic message on the WDET app.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The 2015 Paris climate agreement is not the boogeyman that punishes the United States that critics such as President Donald Trump claim. But it hasn’t quite kept the world from overheating either.
The Paris agreement is a mostly voluntary climate pact originally written in ways that would both try to reduce warming and withstand the changing political winds in the United States.
In his first hours in office, Trump started the year-long process to withdraw from the pact. It’s the second time he’s done it — then-President Joe Biden had the U.S. rejoin on his second day in office.
Once the withdrawal takes effect next year the United States joins Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only United Nations countries that are not part of the agreement.
The U.S. withdrawal, while expected, triggered heavy reactions from around the world. That’s because the United States is historically responsible for the largest share of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, has been a leader in international climate negotiations and is the world’s largest producer of the fossil fuels that cause the problem in the first place.
The main goal is to keep long-term global temperatures from warming 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times and if not that well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees) by slashing planet-warming emissions from coal, oil and gas.
“The Paris Agreement is a framework, not a stand alone solution,” said Mohamed Adow, founder of PowerShift Africa and a veteran climate negotiations observer. “Tackling climate change is not a pass-or-fail scenario. The Paris Agreement was never a solution itself, just a structure for countries to take action. And in large part that is what countries are doing.”
It is a pact that is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which started in 1992 with the Rio Earth Summit. Technically, the Paris agreement itself is not a treaty so its adoption by America did not require U.S. Senate approval.
Is it mandatory?
It works as a binding but voluntary program. Every five years countries are required to submit a goal or plan for what it will do about heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases. And those goals — called National Determined Contributions or NDCs — are supposed to be more ambitious every five years, said Cambridge University climate negotiations historian Joanna Depledge.
The latest five-year pledges are due next month. Biden submitted a plan for the United States last month to reduce emissions as much as two-thirds by 2035 compared to 2005 levels. Countries can make their emissions targets less ambitious.
“The countries themselves” decide what it’s in those goals with no punishment for countries missing goals, Depledge said.
Every two years, countries have to report how much greenhouse gases they emit.
The pact also says that rich countries, such as the United States, need to help poor countries decarbonize their economies, adapt to the impacts of climate change, and most recently be responsible in some ways for damage done by climate change.
Last year international negotiations set a goal of rich nations contributing $300 billion a year to help poor nations with climate change. The United States disputes that the $300 billion goal is legally binding, Depledge said.
How much does it cost the U.S.?
No industrialized country is assigned a portion of the $300 billion.
Historically, the United States has been criticized for providing less than its share of the global financial climate aid, given the United States’ history as a major climate polluter and it being the world’s largest economic power.
“Formally, there is no agreement on how much the U.S. should provide. However, our work on Fair Shares – based on U.S. historical emissions and ability to pay – finds that the U.S. contribution should be $44.6 billion per year,” Mercy Corps climate lead Debbie Hillier said in an email.
Last year, Biden announced that the U.S. climate aid to poor nations was up to $11 billion a year.
How did it come to be?
The 1998 Kyoto Protocol — which Al Gore and the Clinton Administration helped forge — called for mandatory emission cuts and was rejected by non-binding votes in the U.S. Senate. Then George W. Bush withdrew America from the deal.
That eventually led to an agreement being fashioned in Paris in a way that didn’t need U.S. Senate approval and was not mandatory. A bilateral agreement between the United States and China in 2014 paved the way for the agreement in Paris.
“One of the main reasons that countries are not legally required to actually meet the emissions reduction pledges they put forward under the Paris Agreement is because the Obama administration indicated that with the increased political polarization around climate change over the two decades following the Rio Earth Summit, obtaining 67 votes in support of the agreement in the U.S. Senate would have been challenging,” said veteran climate analyst Alden Meyer of the European think-tank E3G.
Has it worked?
Last year Earth temporarily passed the primary Paris 1.5 degree threshold, said several of the global monitoring groups. And while the 1.5 degree goal is about a 20-year average, the overwhelming majority of scientists say the world is likely to eventually breach the 1.5 mark for good. The long-term warming is now 1.3 degrees (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
In 2015, Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists, said the world was on path to 3.6 degrees Celsius (6.5 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times. Now the same group has the world on path for 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit).
Experts call it a partial success, saying negotiators in Paris never figured that the agreement alone would be sufficient.
Mercy Corps’ Hillier said that while reduced warming projections are “far from sufficient, it is shows that the collective commitments under the Paris Agreement have made a difference.”
What does U.S. withdrawal mean?
Once withdrawn, the U.S. can attend negotiations, but not be part of decision making.
There’s little direct impact on domestic U.S. climate policy, but “the decision may undermine U.S. credibility in climate diplomacy, likely reducing its influence in global environmental policy,” said Scott Segal, a Washington lawyer who represents energy interests, including fossil fuel companies.
Several experts say the United States will lose out on a trillion dollar plus renewable energy boom, leaving other countries like China to rule the green economy.
“The world is more likely to warm slightly more,″ said Climate Analytics and scientist CEO Bill Hare. “The more the world warms the faster we will experience more extreme weather events such as flooding, extreme hurricanes, fire, weather, drought, and heat. The U.S. will not be exempt from such events.”
Science writer Seth Borenstein covered the 2015 Paris Agreement live. Follow him on X at @borenbears
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.
FILE – A pumpjack operates in the foreground while a wind turbine at the Buckeye Wind Energy wind farm rises in the distance, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
One scientist thinks lake whitefish could disappear from certain parts of the Great Lakes within the next five years.
That’s the assessment as fisheries managers start to wrap up their yearly look at how the iconic species is doing in portions of lakes Michigan and Huron and in eastern Lake Superior.
The stock assessment, which has historically been each year but will now go to an every-three-year cycle, is part of the Great Lakes Fishing Decree, which dictates how partners from tribal, federal and state governments manage fisheries in northern Michigan’s waters.
Biologists have used computer models to track whitefish in Lake Michigan and Huron for several years. And the numbers have consistently been trending down.
But this year, after biologists tweaked the formula for a more accurate count of just how many whitefish there are, in almost every case in the lower lakes, the model spit out much lower abundance than in past years.
“We’re gonna need … 60 or so million people that live near the shores of the Great Lakes to care that these fish are headed towards extirpation.”
–Jason Smith, fisheries biologist
“None of us were surprised,” said Jason Smith, a fisheries biologist with Bay Mills Indian Community in the Upper Peninsula. “It’s possible that as biologists, we didn’t do a good enough job of raising the alarm widely to the public, but amongst ourselves … we have known that we were in the middle of a crisis.”
The most recent assessment took into account something different, giving scientists a more accurate picture of how many whitefish are in the lakes.
That something different? Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“During all this decline in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, the whitefish in Green Bay were doing really well,” Smith said. “They were doing so well, in fact, that many of those fish swam out of Green Bay and got captured in places like Muskegon in Lake Michigan, like De Tour in Lake Huron.”
But until recently, the models couldn’t really tell the difference between a whitefish from Green Bay and a whitefish from somewhere else.
That changed this time around. And scientists found that those Green Bay fish were artificially inflating whitefish abundance in other places throughout Lakes Michigan and Huron.
This year, models gave a more accurate, more dire picture.
“Even if we bring [commercial fishing] harvest to zero, the lakes are still headed toward extirpation,” Smith said.
In other words, Smith says, lake whitefish could disappear from certain parts of the Great Lakes within the next five years.
he management units in 1836 treaty waters where fisheries managers from tribal, federal and state government collaborate on stock assessments used to set harvest limits for species like lake whitefish and lake trout.
They’re struggling because invasive quagga and zebra mussels are making it extremely difficult for whitefish to reach adulthood in Lake Michigan and Huron.
“These non-local beings basically have disrupted the food chain in a way that adikameg — lake whitefish — can no longer really make a living in the main basin of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan,” Smith said.
These mussels suck tons of nutrients out of the water, leaving very little left for young whitefish.
“If we go back, say, to the peaks of whitefish, in each liter of [lake] water, there’d be somewhere between 100 and 700 zooplankton. So 100 to 700 nice little bite sized meals for a baby whitefish,” Smith said.
A few years back, Smith and other biologists sampled for zooplankton in northern Lake Michigan.
“We actually had a 30-meter tow in which we did not capture a single zooplankton,” he said. “It’s really unheard of. When I tell people we had a zooplankton tow that didn’t have a zooplankton in it, limnologists actually don’t believe me.”
So, the solution? Smith says there are a couple. First, more funding for figuring out how to control quagga and zebra mussels in the lakes.
And second, more time for figuring out how to give whitefish a boost with rearing and stocking programs.
Scientists from federal, tribal and state governments are working on these.
“But we’re gonna need … 60-or-so-million people that live near the shores of the Great Lakes to care that these fish are headed towards extirpation,” Smith said.
Next week’s very cold temperatures might provide a good excuse for some Michiganders to curl up at home with a book and blanket, but others who are experiencing housing instability look to find shelter to weather the low temperatures.
An incoming Arctic air blast is expected to hit the Great Lakes region starting Sunday, prompting temperatures to fall below zero Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday throughout large portions of Michigan. Homeless shelters and warming centers throughout the state are preparing to house those who are at risk of life-threatening cold.
Exposure to extreme cold can cause hypothermia, when your body temperature falls below 95℉, and lead to death. Frostbite occurs when the cold damages body tissue, and can occur in just minutes in extremely low temperatures.
Michigan’s homeless population has grown over the past year, and a recent report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development states that 9,739 Michiganders did not have permanent housing in 2024.
Shelly Hoffman, vice president and chief operating officer at Shelter of Flint, said the group’s shelter is preparing for the cold weather but is currently full. She said the organization is calling in extra staff, opening a new warming center, and moving families out of the shelter into permanent housing as quickly as possible.
“The community’s warming center is at capacity,” Hoffman told Michigan Public. “And so we are trying to do what we can to kick in and help and provide some space for people to get out of the cold.”
Hoffman said many other shelters are stepping up in the Flint area to open up more spaces during the upcoming cold temperatures, though staffing is a limitation.
Cities have also enacted extreme weather plans. The city of Lansing activated “Code Blue” earlier this week, which encourages local shelters to open more spaces and extend hours.
Mark Criss is the executive director of City Rescue Mission of Lansing, a homeless shelter and Christian organization. Criss said the group is working collectively with other organizations in the Lansing area to provide shelter for those who need it.
“We expect Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday to be in negative wind chill,” Criss said. “And so this is a condition of people can lose limbs and lose their life. And so we want to make sure that people are able to have a safe place to be off the streets.”
The National Weather Service suggests those who venture out into the cold temperatures dress appropriately for the cold, carry a charged cell phone, and pack winter survival kits in vehicles.
Michigan House Republicans are renewing an effort to count around a dozen Upper Peninsula natural gas generators as clean energy.
Without the policy change, the reciprocating internal combustion engines, or RICE generators, would have to go offline or cancel out their greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
That’s because of a state law requiring a complete clean energy transition by then.
State Rep. Karl Bohnak (R-Deerton) sponsors the legislation. He said renewable energy sources wouldn’t be able to replace the energy production of the gas generators.
“If we were to build out these solar and wind, there would be much less. And we have to use huge amounts of land, hundreds of thousands of acres for solar. And just think about all the roads we have to construct and so on and so forth, how much that would cost,” Bohnak said Wednesday.
A concern with the 13 RICE generators is how new they are. They were built within the last 10 years to replace coal plants in the U.P. The natural gas generators emit less greenhouse gases than the coal plants, but they still burn fossil fuels and contribute to climate change.
Rep. David Prestin (R-Cedar River) said ratepayers will be covering the costs for the gas generators until 2049. He’s doubtful renewable energy could provide enough power for the U.P.
“They’re bonded out till then. So, we’re going to be paying on two sources of generation. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t work. If they don’t stay running, we go darker. We become reliant on Wisconsin transmission,” Prestin said.
When the state Legislature rewrote Michigan’s energy laws in 2023, Prestin and other Northern Michigan lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to create a carve-out for the generators. The law did leave some exceptions for fossil fuel plants, including ones using carbon-capture or removal technology.
But it doesn’t look like the RICE generator exception is going to get much support from Democrats in the House minority.
“Michigan is on track for a healthier future thanks to the Clean Energy and Jobs Act we passed in 2023, and we’re already seeing the jobs and tax revenue that go along with transformative infrastructure investments. Any proposal that cuts the U.P. off from the economic and health benefits of green energy doesn’t make sense,” House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) and House Democratic Floor Leader John Fitzgerald (D-Wyoming) said in a joint written statement.
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NEW YORK (AP) — When Lucy Walker debuted her harrowing documentary about California wildfires, “Bring Your Own Brigade,” at Sundance in 2021, it was during peak COVID. Not the best time for a film on a wholly different scourge.
“It was really hard,” the Oscar-nominated filmmaker says now. “I didn’t blame people for not wanting to watch a film about the fires in the middle of the pandemic, because it was just too much horror.”
And so the film, though acclaimed — it was named one of the 10 best films of the year by the New York Times – didn’t reach an audience as large as Walker had hoped, with its urgent display of the human cost of wildfires and its tough, crucial questions for the future.
That could change. Walker thinks people may now be more receptive to her message, given the devastating wildfires that have wrought havoc on Los Angeles itself the past week. Firefighters were preparing on Tuesday to attack new blazes amid warnings that winds combined with severely dry conditions created a “particularly dangerous situation.”
“This is probably the moment where it becomes undeniable,” she said in an interview.
She added: “It does feel like people are now asking the question that I was asking a few years ago, like, ‘Is it safe to live in Los Angeles? And why is this happening, and what can we do about it? And the good news is that there are some things we can do about it. What’s tricky is that they’re really hard to accomplish.”
Documenting the human cost, confronting complacency
In “Bring Your Own Brigade” (available on Paramount+), Walker portrays in sometimes terrifying detail the devastation caused by two wildfires on the same day in 2018, products of the same wind event — the Camp Fire that engulfed the northern California city of Paradise and the Woolsey fire in Malibu, two towns on opposite ends of the political and economic spectrum.
She embeds herself with firefighters, and explores the lives of locals affected by the fire. She shares harrowing cellphone footage of people driving through exploding columns of fire as they try to escape, crying out “I don’t want to die!” She plays 911 calls in which people plead vainly for rescue as fire laps at their backyards or invades their homes.
And she conveys a layered message: Devastating fires in California are increasingly inevitable. Climate change is a clear accelerating factor, yes, but it’s not the only one, and therein lies an element of hope: There are things people can do, if they start to make different (and difficult) choices — in both where and how they choose to live.
But first, complacency must be vanquished.
“Complacency sets in when there hasn’t been a fire for a few years and you start to think, it might not happen again,” Walker says.
It even affected Walker herself a few months ago. A British transplant to Los Angeles, she had chosen to live on the Venice-Santa Monica border — too scared, she says, to live in the city’s lovely hilly areas with small winding roads, surrounded by nature and vegetation, near the canyons that wildfires love.
But a few months ago, she started wondering if over-anxiety about wildfires had incorrectly influenced her choice. And then, of course, came the Palisades catastrophe —“this God awful reminder that it only takes one event,” she says.
The challenge of enacting fire safety measures
Walker became interested in making a film about wildfires after she arrived in the city and wondered if she was safe. “Why is the hillside on fire?” she says she wondered. “Why do people just keep on driving?” She had considered such fires “a medieval problem.”
One thing she learned while filming: Firefighters were even more impressive and courageous than she’d thought. “If you want to watch a firefighter have their heart broken, it’s when they want to do more,” she says. “I was just absolutely wowed by how incredibly selfless and brilliant they were.”
Not that the public wasn’t angry at them — her film depicts angry residents of Malibu, for example, chastising firefighters for not doing enough.
One of the most stunning parts of “Bring Your Own Brigade” — the title is a reference to the economic inequity of wealthy homeowners or celebrities like Kim Kardashian hiring private firefighters — is watching the reaction of firefighters at a town meeting in Paradise, where 85 people had been killed in the fire. They’ve convened to discuss adopting safety measures as they rebuild. One by one, measures are rejected — even the simplest, requiring a five-foot buffer around every house where nothing is flammable. Safety takes a back burner to individual choice.
“It was very shocking to be at that meeting in particular, given that people had died in the most horrible way in that community. And you have firefighters with tears in their eyes saying, ‘This is what we need to have happen to keep us safe, and then (they) get voted down.”
Walker is not the only filmmaker to have made a film about Paradise. In 2020, Ron Howard directed “Rebuilding Paradise,” focused on the effort to rebuild, and the resilience of residents. Walker says she looked at the same set of facts and arrived at different takeaways.
Townspeople were indeed amazing and resilient, Walker says. “But are we right to be building back without a real rethink? Because the tragedy is that these fires are predictably going to be repeating and against the backdrop of climate change, they’re getting worse, not better.”
In the wildfire age, rethinking where we live — and how
That rethink involves making hard calls about where people should live. “The population is overwhelmingly moving into these wildland urban interface areas,” Walker says, referring to areas where housing meets undeveloped wildland vegetation — exactly the areas most likely to burn.
In California, some of these places are very expensive — like Palisades and Malibu — but others are in more affordable areas. With the great pressure on housing, more people are moving into such areas, she says. But the “braking mechanism” could be that insurance companies “are doing the math, and it’s not sustainable.”
It’s not only a question of where people live.
“What does a fire-hardened home look like?” Walker asks. “Design-wise, that that does dictate certain things.” For example: “This lovely wood is going to require tremendous firefighting.”
It’s too early to know, but Walker thinks she may be hearing something different now from those who’ve lost homes, of whom she knows many.
“What I’m hearing from people is not just ‘I can’t wait to rebuild. Let me rebuild,’” she says. “It’s: ‘How could we go through that again?’”
Firefighters hose down a burning structure on Lake Avenue, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in the downtown Altadena section of Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Blue states are bracing for a battle with the Trump administration over their authority to limit tailpipe emissions, a showdown that will have major repercussions on the types of cars and trucks sold to American drivers.
All sides expect President-elect Donald Trump to try to revoke states’ authority to adopt California’s strict rules on the pollution spewed by vehicles.
Many states’ efforts to fight climate change hinge on a federal process that allows them to adopt stringent regulations for transportation, the country’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
This long-standing waiver authority allows California — and the dozen or so states that follow its lead — to apply rules that go beyond federal limits and cover everything from specific pollutants to sales of certain vehicles. The states following the stricter California standards make up a significant portion of the U.S. auto market and exert major leverage over the cars that are offered to American consumers.
“It becomes a de facto national standard,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at the UC Berkeley School of Law. “The combined might of California and those other states is pretty significant.”
During his first term, Trump attempted to revoke California’s waiver authority, an action many states challenged as unlawful. The effort to deny the waivers was tied up in legal challenges until President Joe Biden took office. This time, Trump will have a “much more cohesive plan” to block state efforts to clean up their cars and trucks, Elkind said.
California is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to finalize several pending waivers before Trump returns to the White House. Officials in blue states are preparing to defend their authority in court should Trump seek to revoke the waivers. And attorneys general in some red states are pushing to end the waivers altogether — mounting a legal challenge to California’s power to set its own rules.
“Without [California’s waiver authority], we would probably be a decade or more behind where we are today in terms of the U.S. automotive market,” said Mary Nichols, former chair of the California Air Resources Board, the agency that issues the state’s auto regulations. “In terms of reaching our climate goals, it’s essential.”
Nichols now serves as the distinguished counsel for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law.
State efforts
When Congress enacted federal air quality laws in the 1960s, it gave California the authority to go above and beyond national standards because it was the only state to already have passed its own auto emissions rules. The state’s geography, with mountains that trap harmful pollution in heavily populated areas, also contributed to California’s unique status. Over 50-plus years, the state has received more than 100 waivers from the feds covering everything from particulate matter to catalytic converters to “check engine” lights.
The EPA allows other states to adopt the regulations set by California. Seventeen other states and the District of Columbia have adopted some portion of California’s regulations — representing 40% of the light-duty vehicle market and more than 25% of the heavy-duty market.
“These waivers are a really important part of our strategy to reduce emissions in line with what climate science tells us what we need to do,” said Joel Creswell, climate pollution reduction program manager with the Washington State Department of Ecology. “They’re also really important for our air quality near road communities.”
In the waning days of the Biden administration, California leaders have urged the EPA to finalize an assortment of pending waivers that cover issues including electric car sales, heavy-duty fleets, yard equipment and refrigerated trucks. The agency approved several of those waivers in December and January, including a landmark rule that will ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.
California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, who spoke to Stateline in November, said the law requires the feds to grant and uphold the waivers unless the state’s actions are “arbitrary and capricious.”
“If there’s an attempt to revoke them by the Trump administration or a denial of them that’s unlawful, we’ll be very aggressive in taking action to protect California’s ability to seek its waivers,” he said.
Elkind, the legal expert, said Biden’s administration likely has delayed the waivers until the last minute because officials want to build a strong case that will make it difficult for Trump to revoke them.
“EPA is having to be more careful and specific about the justification for granting them,” he said, building the case that “California has an obligation to reduce emissions of these very specific pollutants, and it’s not going to be able to meet its Clean Air Act requirements without zero-emission vehicles.”
Pushing back
California’s waivers have faced opposition from a slew of industry groups, including automakers, trucking associations, railroads, agriculture interests and fossil fuel providers. In many cases, they argue that the standards require a switch to cleaner technologies that aren’t yet in wide supply or cost-effective. For instance, trucking groups say there are few semitruck engines available that meet the new standard for nitrogen oxide emissions.
“They [federal regulators] put in an aggressive standard and gave little time for the manufacturers to come up with that product,” said Mike Tunnell, senior director of energy and environmental affairs with the trade group American Trucking Associations. “As it turned out, they didn’t give them enough time.”
Tunnell said trucking dealerships in California have struggled with product shortages. As a result, some companies are continuing to use existing trucks, keeping dirty engines on the road. His group opposes another pending waiver sought by California that would require companies to transition their truck fleets to zero-emission models. Current trucks that meet that standard are significantly more expensive than typical models, Tunnell said.
Truckers in New York — which has adopted the California standard — already are struggling to buy the equipment they need, said Kendra Hems, president of the Trucking Association of New York. She noted that the state lacks charging infrastructure to support a transition to electric trucks, and that current models have a limited range that would force drivers to stop frequently along their routes.
“We’re not opposed to it, we’re simply not ready,” Hems said. “They’re asking an industry to comply with something that there’s simply not supporting infrastructure for.”
Automakers have made a similar argument about California’s electric vehicle sales mandate, saying in a statement that it will “take a miracle” to phase out new gas-powered cars by 2035.
The industry groups have argued for a consistent national standard, a cause backed by 17 Republican-led states. A coalition of attorneys general filed a lawsuit in 2022 challenging California’s power to set stricter rules.
“This is not the United States of California,” said Ohio Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, who has led the legal effort, in a 2021 news release challenging California’s waivers.
In a letter to the EPA opposing Biden’s reinstatement of a waiver, Yost argued that California’s rules create a de facto national standard for automakers, which results in more expensive cars for consumers in every state. That violates states’ right to equal sovereignty, he asserted.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would review whether fuel producers — which have joined the case against the waivers — have enough cause to sue. But the court declined to consider the lawfulness of California’s underlying waiver authority.
While the legal fight continues, Elkind asserted that opponents of California’s long-standing status don’t have a strong case.
“The waiver has been granted to California repeatedly for more than a half century,” he said. “There’s solid legal ground in the Clean Air Act, and the justification is extremely well documented.”
All homeowners in the Houston Whittier/Hayes and Greenfield Park communities have already entered written agreements for voluntary buyouts by the city.
Duggan says he would not use eminent domain against homeowners, but he will for speculators.
“You all know how I feel about the speculators in this town who have bought up vacant lots across the city to try to hold us up,” he said. “The fact that we can use eminent domain means we can buy those vacant lots for their worth. They can’t hold us up.”
The two neighborhoods create an additional 61 acres of solar arrays.
Phase one of the project already secured 104 acres of land, bringing the total to 165 acres acquired.
Pages Bookshop in Detroit’s historic North Rosedale Park is closing its doors after a decade. The owner of the independent bookstore, Susan Murphy, announced in email she will be retiring at the end of the month.
Wayne State University is hosting a National Day of Healing from Racism event at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 21, at the university’s Student Center. This year’s theme is Reclaiming Humanity through Co-Liberation and Solidarity. The free event will feature bystander intervention training, an art therapy session and performances.
The next Detroit Department of Transportation Monthly Community Input Meeting is taking place at 5 p.m. next Thursday, Jan. 16. Residents can give input on services, fares, routes and more. For more information about the virtual meeting, email ddotcomments@detroitmi.gov.
Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.
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The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy has designated two new sites as “areas of interest” for potential PFAS contamination.
PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because they take so long to break down in the environment. They’re linked to a number of health issues, including hormone disruptions and certain cancers.
Michigan divides sites with signs of those chemicals into two categories. One is PFAS sites, where there’s evidence of groundwater contamination and a known source. The other is areas of interest, where there’s possible contamination warranting further investigation.
The state added two more places to the hundreds of such sites this month.
The other is near U.S. 131 in Wexford County, near Cadillac. Two businesses there have shown elevated levels of PFAS in their drinking water, but the source of potential contamination is currently unknown, according to EGLE.
EGLE plans to sample nearby residential wells for PFAS at both sites in 2025.
Some counties in Michigan will be swapping out diesel garbage trucks for all-electric recycling trucks.
In Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne counties, 15 heavy-duty electric trucks will go to work in disadvantaged communities. That’s because typically underprivileged areas have air pollution problems already. Removing diesel trucks and replacing them with electric zero-emissions trucks will relieve some of that pollution.
They’ll be paid for by a $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Program. It’s funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. The grant also will fund new charging stations and training for mechanics and drivers.
Nationwide, $400 million in grants will be used for similar projects in areas that are not attaining the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy is handling the grant at the state level. It did not respond to a request for an interview.
A chemical company director is facing a host of criminal charges related to a 2022 spill in the Flint River.
Lockhart was a Flint-based chemical processing facility that manufactured rust-preventative additives for the metalworking industry.
In June 2022, approximately 15,000 gallons of an oily mix of chemicals was discovered seeping into the river from the company’s facility.
The cleanup eventually grew to 22 miles of the Flint River.
Inspection of the Lockhart facility revealed multiple chemical storage issues.
Attorney General Dana Nessel said the blame falls on director Rajinder Minhas for his “dangerous daily operations” of the facility along the Flint River.
“Repeatedly neglecting maintenance. Refusing necessary facility upgrades. And failing to implement a preventative maintenance plan or provide annual emergency training for employees,” Nessel told reporters in Flint on Monday.
Minhas is charged with multiple felonies, including “Substantial Endangerment to Public” and “Falsely Altering a Public Record,” with the most serious charges carrying a 14-year sentence. He is also charged with numerous misdemeanor counts, including offenses for violating hazardous waste statutes, permits, or rules and violations of the state’s Liquid Industrial Waste law.
Minhas appeared in court last week and he is due to return to court in January.
His attorney has not responded to a request for comment.
Since the 2022 spill, the company filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, the clean up project at the facility goes on.
Hugh McDiarmid, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, said the department’s current priority is to continue moving chemicals offsite. To date, more than half the chemicals on site have been sold or properly disposed.
“EGLE meets weekly with EPA, (the) Department of Justice (the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee) and others to discuss site status and address issues,” McDiarmid wrote in a statement, “EGLE’s Water Resources Division staff makes weekly inspections, and the outfall where the substance entered the river continues to be monitored multiple times weekly. The boom is in place and will be for the near future as a precautionary measure.”
What started out as a tradition to hunt and kill as many birds as possible, turned into something much different 125 years ago. People decided instead to count the birds.
In Michigan, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count is taking place at about 80 sites across the state. There are more than 70 sites in Ohio. There are thousands of sites around the world.
Stephanie Beilke is senior manager of conservation science with Audubon Great Lakes. She said it’s not too late for you to get involved too. You can start at the group’s website.
“It’ll show a map of where counts are happening near you. And then you find your nearest circle. It’s a seven-mile-radius circle and it’ll tell you who is leading the count, who to be in touch with, and you would just email that person and they’ll get you set up and where you can help out.”
This season’s count is already underway. If you want to get participate, you should look into it right away.
The data gathered helps determine how well populations of different species are doing and if climate change affects where they spend the winter.
“Because it’s been going on for so long, it’s contributing to a massive data set that can give us an idea of, you know, a trend of populations for birds over the winter,” Beilke said.
Thousands of people set out to explore Michigan’s woods and water at the end of 2023.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the outdoor industry brought in nearly $14 billion in economic activity. That’s an 8 percent increase compared to 2022.
While the amount of growth is less than 2022 numbers, advocates and business owners say outdoor industries have potential to be powerful economic drivers in the future.
The data
The latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) highlighted the growing impact of outdoor industries in Michigan in 2023:
$13.9 billion in economic activity
118,000+ jobs supported
$6.4 billion in wages earned
Outdoor recreation’s value to Michigan’s economy grew 8.1% since 2022.
Industry wages increased 7.3%, totaling $6.4 billion.
Boating/Fishing led the way, generating $1.2 billion.
Climbing/Hiking/Tent Camping grew to $206 million.
Hunting/Shooting Sports added $330 million to the state’s economy.
Heart of the Lakes — an advocacy group for Michigan’s land conservancies — said the figures reflect “a vibrant and growing outdoor economy, driven by a deep connection to Michigan’s natural resources.”
Executive Director Jonathan Jarosz called Michigan’s outdoor industries a “sleeping giant” because of its range of activities and manufacturers.
“We’re not just stuck on watercraft, we’re not just stuck on skiing, we’re not just stuck on hunting and fishing,” Jarosz said. “Any possible activity you can think of — even ice climbing — you can do in Michigan.”
The growth path comes after a major spike in outdoor recreation during the pandemic. Michigan’s success is only part of a new wave of outdoor adventurers.
Nationally, outdoor economies contributed $1.2 trillion in gross output and supported 5 million jobs.
Jarosz noted that Michigan is still “middle of the pack” compared to other states with large outdoor recreation markets.
“It’s like in a 5k, you have your crazy athletes running six minute miles, you have the people who just want to walk for fun, then you have the weekend warriors that are shooting to do their best,” he said. “That’s where Michigan is compared to others – we have room for improvement.”
Hope for the future
Meanwhile, outdoor advocates are celebrating the passage of the EXPLORE Act, a federal bill package meant to improve recreation on public lands and waters.
The U.S. Senate passed the legislation on Thursday and it will now go to President Joe Biden’s desk for final approval.
The package would streamline permitting for outdoor guides, provide federal grants to create and improve parks in urban communities, increase youth recreation and veterans access to federal lands, among many other initiatives.
“It’s like a year-end gift,” Jarosz said. “This gives us an opportunity to unify the outdoor movements. The number of bills that fall under it will only help to increase access to the outdoors and continue to raise Michigan and our country as an outdoorsman’s paradise.”
On the state level, advocates and business owners are similarly optimistic but say there is still work to be done.
Crystal Mountain Resort President Chris McInnes says growth trends show the outdoors could be both an economic driver and a marketing asset for people to move to Michigan.
“We’re seeing that it’s sustained. So, many more people have been exposed and have fallen in love with the outdoors,” she said.
Both McInnes and Jarosz, who sit on the office’s advisory council, say they’d like to see funding and staffing increase.
“We want lawmakers to really look at the outdoor recreation economy as a focus sector in our overall economic strategic plan to help Michigan thrive in the future,” McInnes said.
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Each neighborhood provided input on the landscaping for the solar fields in their area. Neighbors chose between trees, decorative fences, and whether to plant urban farms or wildflowers beneath the panels.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says community input on the design was the top priority.
“We are not going forward unless each of these neighborhood associations signs off on a neighborhood agreement with the design of the solar fields that they want,” Duggan said. “This has been a neighbor driven project from the beginning.”
Construction for the fields is expected to begin in spring of 2025.
Other headlines for Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024:
Detroit now has its very first rage room, where people can destroy objects like old electronics, glass, or furniture as a means of therapy for releasing pent-up anger or frustration. The business, called the Damage Zone, is a recipient of the city’s Motor City Match program.
A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by a Muslim worker against U.S. Steel can move forward. Jalal Muflihi says while working at the company’s Great Lakes location he faced harassment and retaliation and was denied access to training and advancement. U.S. Steel had asked the court to dismiss the charges, arguing there was not enough evidence. Muflihi, a Yemeni American, says coworkers called him a terrorist and a shoe bomber – and that management was aware of the harassment and took no action. He filed the suit in 2022.
The Detroit Parks and Recreation Department is recruiting youth for its basketball and Olympic handball programs in the new year. The Get Bucketz Basketball program provides four weeks of fundamentals on basketball for 7-14 year olds. The program is $25 and will be held at the Northwest Activities Center, 18100 Meyers Rd. Handball sessions will be held at the Tindal Activity Center at 10301 W & Mile Monday evenings starting Jan. 27. The department says handball is like combining soccer and basketball. The four-week program is for 8-12 year olds and costs $10. Register for both programs at dprdathletics.com.
Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.
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The UAW strike has gotten much bigger. Plus, several family-friendly activities are available around Detroit this weekend. Those stories and more on today’s Detroit Evening Report.
Marathon Petroleum’s Detroit refinery workers, represented by the Teamsters, have ratified a seven-year collective bargaining agreement, concluding a three-month strike that began on Sept. 4.
The strike was initiated over pay and safety concerns following the expiration of their previous contract in January, reintegrating the striking employees into refinery operations.
The Detroit refinery has a capacity of 140,000 barrels per day and is one of Marathon’s 13 refineries nationwide.
Other headlines for Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024:
The Environmental Protection Agency has allocated$20 million to over 15 Detroit churches and other religious organizations.The funding aims to help environmental projects focused on reducing pollution and preparing for extreme weather emergencies in local neighborhoods.The projects are part of the churches’ initiatives of environmental stewardship in the city.
The Dearborn Ice Skating Center is offering a Skate with Santa event this weekend. Attendees can skate to Christmas music and take selfies with the big guy and other holiday characters. Tickets are $10 and available at the center’s website.
The Detroit Public Library is offering a free Kids Wrapping Station at its Lincoln Branch on Thursday, Dec. 19. Kids can bring gifts they’d like to wrap and use the library’s wrapping paper, tags, tape and scissors to wrap them in style. The Kids Wrapping Station will be open from 4-5:40 p.m. The Lincoln Branch is located at 1221 East Seven Mile Road.
The DPL Knapp Branch is hosting a “Repair Café” on Saturday, Dec. 21. People can bring items in need of repair and get help fixing them and even learn how to make repairs themselves. The event is volunteer-dependent. Anyone with skills they’d like to donate to the cause is invited to join the event. Volunteers are also welcome to bring in items they would like someone to repair. The Repair Café is open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is held on the third Saturday of each month. Those who register on Eventbrite will be notified if plans change. The Knapp Branch is located at 13330 Conant.
Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.
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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.
Almost two decades ago, a Republican-majority Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm struck a deal. The state’s environment agency would be allowed to raise fees on businesses for a pollution program, but in exchange, the agency could not make any new rules regarding certain water pollution issues.
Surface and groundwater protection is covered under Part 31 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. The Legislature prohibited the then-Department of Environmental Quality from making new rules under Part 31 after December 31, 2006.
That is still the case.
During the current lame duck session, the Legislature is considering bills would lift that ban on making rules for what is today known as the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).
“And this piece of legislation, House Bill 5205, Senate Bill 663, just simply strikes that language, that they cannot promulgate any new rules and then would open EGLE to be able to do what they’re actually charged with doing, which is protecting the waters of the state,” said Megan Tinsley with the Michigan Environmental Council.
Democratic Rep. Emily Dievendorf is sponsor of the House version of the bill. Democratic Senator Susan Shink is the Senate sponsor.
EGLE has been unable to keep regulation up to date with some federal standards and updated science since its authority was taken away in 2007.
Since then, we’ve learned about new pollutants such as PFAS.
“So there’s things like this that are just lingering out there that are public health threats, certainly threats to the environment. And this is a very straightforward fix that we just have to get through the process,” Tinsley said.
The Michigan Farm Bureau is among the opponents to the legislation. It’s urging its members to oppose the bills. It characterizes the legislation differently, saying it “would significantly increase EGLE’s regulatory power” as opposed to restoring it as originally written. In a Farm Bureau news release, Legislative Counsel Ben Tirrell is quoted as saying, “Our members prioritize transparency and insist that rules and standards be grounded in sound economic and scientific analysis.”
The group said the legislation would grant EGLE nearly unchecked authority over Michigan’s water.
If restored, EGLE’s regained regulatory authority would be the same under Part 31 as it is under the rest of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act.
The Michigan Environmental Council’s Tinsley said it’s urgent that the Democratic majority restores the law before the lame duck session ends.
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