Michigan Radio: Environment

Today on Stateside , from outbursts at school board meetings to confrontations at the store, the pandemic seems to have given rise to a new culture of anger in the U.S. We’ll talk about what can we do to turn down the heat. Then, writer John U. Bacon talks about what he learned from his gig as a coach for a notoriously bad high school hockey team. And, residents of Oscoda have been dealing with PFAS contamination for years. A new report lays out what action they want to see now.

Today on Stateside , the Genesee County Health Department mandates masks in schools amid protests from parents. Then, innovative technology helps figure out what’s killing tiny snails. And, the infamous brawl at a 2004 Pacers-Pistons game gets the Netflix documentary treatment.

Whether they're soaring over a field of flowers or dodging toddlers with nets, butterflies are a quintessential part of the Midwest summer experience. And here in Michigan we are blessed with a particularly gorgeous species: the monarch. But they haven't been around as much these days.

Experts around the state are considering climate change and the increasing frequency of severe weather events, and what that means for Michigan's aging infrastructure—including its power grid. Severe storms swept through Michigan's Lower Peninsula last week, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without power. Utility companies like DTE and Consumers Energy were at times slow to restore power, with some Michiganders left for days without power.

The global scientists behind the 4,000-page long Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report did not mince their words. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land,” the landmark report reads. “I think the significance of the report is not in surprising new findings, but in the level of consensus,” says climate change expert Jennifer Haverkamp, who directs the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan.

When you visit one of the Great Lakes, whether it’s a sandy beach or a rocky coastline, it’s hard to imagine how something so big could be affected so profoundly by alien invasive species, or pollution, or climate change. This Environment Report special looks at each of these threats.

Observers have been flocking to Saline since last Wednesday to get a glimpse of a roseate spoonbill, a bird more typically found along the Gulf Coast region and in South America. It is the first recorded sighting of the species in Michigan, according to The Associated Press. The light-pink bird caused such a commotion that local law enforcement was required to direct the overflow of traffic.

All the things that go down the drain and end up at the waste water treatment plant are not removed there. Some of the industrial byproducts that end up in sewers, the agricultural chemicals that runoff farmland, and pharmaceuticals that pass through our bodies, all can end up in our streams and lakes. It’s a soup of chemicals. They’re difficult to keep out of drinking water.

Today on Stateside , we talk with an environmental law expert about the massive flooding in Detroit and surrounding communities. Plus, we meet a Detroit artist who thinks about the fluidity of form, and of thought. And, we check in with two health officials in very different Michigan communities that are tackling the same problem -- low COVID-19 vaccination rates.

Researchers at the University of Michigan are trying to connect the dots between birds becoming smaller with longer wings and their earlier migration. Studies have shown birds are migrating here earlier in the spring. Other studies show they have been physically changing over the decades. Both are due to climate change, according to studies. “On one hand, these birds are dramatically changing in their size and shape, and on the other, they were also changing the timing of their migrations,”...

Today on Stateside , we talk to a researcher who found that the forever chemicals known as PFAS are showing up in rainfall around the Great Lakes. Then, what families should know about kids and COVID-19 as summer vacation begins. And, an effort to save the historical home of Sarah Elizabeth Ray, the Detroit civil rights activist whose U.S. Supreme Court case led to the integration of the Boblo Island ferry.

Tens of thousands of trumpeter swans once flourished in the Great Lakes region. But widespread hunting brought the birds to the brink of extinction, and the species was wiped out in Michigan over 100 years ago. A decades-long effort spearheaded by the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary at Michigan State University has helped bring trumpeter swans back to the Great Lakes — and now, if you’re lucky, you might just catch a glimpse of these protected birds in the wild.

Isle Royale is the least visited of our national parks, but it's also one of the most revisited. The pandemic threw a curveball at the Lake Superior island. Ferry service was suspended due to the pandemic, making it nearly impossible for visitors to travel to the island. Restrictions on ferry service have now lifted, but the island has changed in unique ways due to human inactivity.

On Thursday, environmental groups and Native Americans plan to present Enbridge Energy with symbolic eviction notices. They want Enbridge to abide by Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s order to shut down Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. In November 2020, Governor Whitmer revoked the easement for Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 twin pipelines through the Straits of Mackinac, and gave the company 180 days to shut down that section of the pipelines, which carry light crude oil and natural gas liquids. That...

Today on Stateside , why one maker of PFAS chemicals is challenging Michigan’s protections for drinking water. Plus, an international standoff is brewing over Enbridge Energy's Line 5 oil pipeline. And, two Beaver Island residents send out a radio program from the middle of Lake Michigan.

Enbridge Energy technically has one more day to shut down the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, but even the pipeline’s most vocal opponents acknowledge slim odds that the oil actually stops flowing right away.

Forty-two years after the state of Michigan became the state of Michigan, a botanist named William Beal buried 20 open bottles of seeds to see how long they could remain viable. A few weeks ago Frank Telewski , a professor of plant biology at Michigan State University, along with a few colleagues, continued the decades-long experiment by digging up one of those bottles on the MSU campus.

There’s been a lot of news about the amount of plastic debris in the oceans. But plastic pollution is also affecting the Great Lakes. A study out of the Rochester Institute of Technology estimates 22 million pounds of plastic debris enters the Great Lakes from the U.S. and Canada each year.

Humans have used psychedelics like magic mushrooms, acid, or ecstasy in a variety of ways for a long time. Though the drugs remain illegal on the federal level in the U.S., interest in psychedelics is continuing to grow, as is the movement to normalize their use — particularly for therapeutic purposes.

Today on Stateside , what’s ahead for Michigan now that it’s getting harder to find arms for vaccine doses. The head of a Dearborn based Arab community organization talks about mobilizing for that very purpose. We also dig into Michigan foraging. Plus, an advocate for psilocybin makes the case for legal microdosing in Michigan.