Each week, MNA gathers news stories from around Michigan and the country related to nature, conservation, and the environment. Here is some of what happened this week in environmental news:
This Oct. 5, 2011 satellite photo from a NASA website shows algae blooms swirling on Lake Erie. (MLive file | NASA)
$50 million cut for Great Lakes cleanup in Obama 2016 budget riles healthy waters group (MLive): President Obama’s 2016 fiscal budget was released this week and those behind an effort to clean up the Great Lakes oppose a $50 million funding cut. The new budget drops funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) from $300 million to $250 million. This will impact the GLRI’s initiatives to tackle invasive species, pollution, habitat degradation, and algal bloom-causing runoff. Since the GLRI launched in 2010, about $1.9 billion has been spent on 2,000 projects in the Great Lakes states.
Keystone pipeline: Obama given boost from EPA report revisiting climate impact (The Guardian): The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said this week that falling oil prices have changed the economic viability of the Keystone XL pipeline. In a letter to the State Department, the EPA said that the recent drop in oil prices meant that Keystone would promote further expansion of Alberta tar sands, which would increase greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 27.4 metric tons per year, nearly as much as building eight coal-fired power plants. President Obama has said he will take climate change into account when deciding on the project, and those opposed to the project say he now has enough information to reject it.
New website finds Great Lakes data in minutes (Great Lakes Echo): Environmental data on the Great Lakes region can now be easily accessed through the Great Lakes Monitoring website. The new site includes an interactive map with monitoring locations, and users can see trends in levels of things like phosphorous, chlorophyll a, nitrogen, and mercury.The website was created by the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The groups hope to expand the website to include a myriad of EPA data.
DNR releases forest health update (Upper Michigan Source): The Michigan Department of Natural Resources released the 2014 Forest Health Highlights Report this week. The report provides an overview of the condition of Michigan’s forest, breaking own health threats, forest decline, and invasive plant control. You can view the report in its entirety on the MDNR website.
One more thing: MNA is hiring! We are looking for a Land Protection Specialist. Visit the MNA website for a job description and application information.
Michigan Nature Association 