Last week, a coupling that attaches to a water pump failed. The water pump is one of three at the plant that cool safety equipment. The part was replaced and the pump is back in service. The same water pump had a coupling fail in 2009.
A major cleanup project along the Tittabawassee River is moving into its final planning stages. It’s a project that presents several challenges.
Dioxin contamination has been the subject of many cleanup projects in the Tittabawassee River. This new project will focus on other dangerous chemicals, like arsenic, dumped into the river in the past.
Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs gets chomped on by a Lake Erie watersnake. The snakes were removed from the Endangered Species List by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
What do a Lake Erie watersnake, a bald eagle, and an American alligator have in common?
They've all rebounded from the threat of extinction and no longer require the protection of the Endangered Species Act.
The only place these snakes are found in the world is on the western edge of Lake Erie in Canada and Ohio.
The snakes were listed as threatened in 1999 because of habitat loss and because humans often killed them.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the tide has turned for the watersnake. The Service published a rule in the Federal Register today delisting the species. From a USFWS press release:
Recovery criteria include a combined population of at least 5,555 snakes on the U.S. islands, sustained for six years, and protection of key habitat.
Through continued habitat protection and public education, the Lake Erie watersnake population grew to about 11,980 in 2009, and has exceeded the minimum recovery level since 2002. About 300 acres of inland habitat and 11 miles of shoreline have been protected for the snake since it was listed.
Back in 2005, reporter Rebecca Williams traveled down to the islands in Lake Erie to witness researchers taking their annual snake census - aka "Nerodeo" - "that’s Nerodia, the snake’s scientific name, and rodeo, as in cowboy roundup.":
The snake biologists don’t just look under rocks. They dive into the lake for snakes. They sneak up on piles of snakes and then grab the whole writhing mass.
The snakes bite. The researchers' arms are covered in snakebites. The bites aren't life threatening, but they're really, really bloody. And then it comes to the job at hand. The biologists are going to force the snakes' stomach contents out. They call it "barfing the snakes."
And what were they barfing up? Mostly round gobies - an invasive species. So here is a case where native species are taking a bite out of an invasive species' population.
The Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe did an episode on the job of a Lake Erie watersnake researcher in 2006 (the snakes poop, pee, bite, and release a musky smell when they're caught).
You can watch Rowe drop to his knees and get chomped on by a Lake Erie watersnake at about 6:20 in this video:
The snakes are still listed as endangered by the state of Ohio, so killing them is still illegal under state law... no matter how much they bite you.
Nearly a quarter of the homes in Detroit are empty. That’s more than 79,000 vacant homes, according to the last Census.
Of those, Mayor Dave Bing’s office considers 12,000 to be dangerous. They’re burned out, or falling apart. They attract squatters and drug dealers. So the city is paying contractors to demolish them.
But another group of people says some of these homes don’t have to be demolished. They can be taken apart board by board... and the materials can be salvaged.
The Dearborn automaker filed suit in May 2004 against the federal government in U.S. District Court in Detroit, arguing the government should pay a share of the costs of cleaning up the automaker's Rouge manufacturing complex that opened in 1917 stemming from military production from World War I.
A Michigan State University scientist is leading a team of researchers to study how lakes, streams and wetlands are connected to their surroundings.
Associate professor of fisheries and wildlife Patricia Soranno is using a $2.2 million National Science Foundation grant to examine land use and climate change's effect on freshwater ecosystems.
Lake Michigan gets an overall ‘C’ grade on a new report card from the Senate Great Lakes Task Force. Beach water quality and lake water levels got ‘D’ grades, scoring lowest on the report card. Superfund cleanup efforts got a ‘B’ and the fight against invasive species like Asian carp got a ‘C.’
Matt Doss is with the Ann Arbor-based Great Lakes Commission. He says the poor grades will help the state.
“It’s going to help hold us all accountable for improving these grades moving forward,” he said. “We can do better and we need to do better.”
The Great Lakes Commission works to improve the health of all five Great Lakes.
It’s not your imagination: The mosquitos are really bad in Michigan right now, and they’re not going away anytime soon.
It’s been a hot summer, with lots of rain, some dry spells in between, then lots more rain.
Perfect, if you’re a mosquito.
Mike Kaufman is a Michigan State University entomologist. He says not only do we have our usual crop of mosquitos, we’ve got psorophora ciliata, a big mosquito with a big bite. It’s native to Michigan, but fairly rare.
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