By Kary Askew Garcia, MNA Intern
Every Friday, MNA gathers news related to the environment from around the state and country. Here are a few highlights from what happened this week in environmental news:
Cherryland’s solar array. Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Echo.
Community solar coming of age in Michigan (Great Lakes Echo): Cherryland Electric Cooperative’s 224-panel solar array in Grand Traverse County in Northern Michigan just celebrated its first anniversary. The Solar Up North Alliance Community Solar Project helped introduce this project which launched on Earth Day 2013 and could be a catalyst for future solar energy projects in the state.
Great Lakes mayors flex muscle on oil, climate change (Great Lakes Echo): Mayors of Great Lakes areas have come together from the U.S. and Canada to discuss oil transportation. Citing the Kalamazoo river oil spill incident and the Lac-Megantic, Quebec train accident and explosion resulting in 47 deaths, the major part of their discussion was these events and taking future actions.
Don’t Poison me! A big win for baby owls (like this one) and other wildlife (Huffington Post): Alicia Hermance chronicles the rescue of a fallen spotted owl and its recovery in her blog post. She also highlights the dangers of rat poisons. Rat poisons are easily available at hardware stores and if placed outside, owls are at risk of getting sick from consuming the poison.
The right call on climate change (Huffington Post): U.S. Representative Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) of California’s 24th District discusses her views on how the new EPA regulations can improve American health, climate change and create clean energy jobs. “By 2030, the EPA plan will cut carbon emissions by 30 percent nationwide, dropping totals below 2005 levels,” Capps wrote in her blog post.
A map showing the ratio of wolf to coyote throughout Yellowstone and Riding Mountain National Parks. Photo courtesy of Conservation Magazine.
Reintroducing wolves is only effective at large scales (Conservation Magazine): The eradication of wolves in the U.S. has greatly effected the ecological carnivorous system –– usually wolves feed on coyotes, who feed on red foxes. Since wolves have severely decreased in numbers, coyotes have increased, preying on more red foxes. Scientists have been experimenting with ratios of wolves to coyotes throughout North America to study its effects on the ecosystem.
Great Lakes Commons charter targets shared waters concept (Great Lakes Echo): The Great Lakes Commons is a group with a vision to unite all those regions governing the lakes to come together and form a mutual protection and care plan. They officially introduced their social charter on Thursday. “The charter will gather the beliefs and commitments of the different peoples of the bio-region, and by doing this, we will be asserting the legitimacy of these ideas and our role in shaping the governance for our lakes,” Alicia Bradley said. Bradley is co-directer of the Milwaukee Water Commons and a leader of the Great Lakes Commons effort.
Michigan Nature Association 