"Three Lake Michigan beaches remain closed after a northwest Indiana steel mill dumped toxic chemicals into a tributary earlier this week, an incident that was not reported to the public until hundreds of dead fish began floating past boaters."
"Over and over, Michigan environmental regulators sounded alarms as they reviewed a proposed large, open-pit ore mine in the Upper Peninsula near the Menominee River, prized for walleye fishing and a major tributary to Lake Michigan. ... Then the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and then-Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved the mine anyway."
"Five Democratic governors of states in the Great Lakes region Monday urged the candidates in next year’s presidential election to support a plan for safeguarding their shared waters by boosting federal spending on treatment plants and environmental cleanups."
"Driven by fears of rapid erosion that threatens to expose a crude oil pipeline to rushing water, a Native American tribe is suing pipeline giant Enbridge to force it to remove an aging pipeline whose easement through the reservation has expired."
"The Ohio legislature passed a measure Tuesday that cuts renewable energy and energy efficiency programs while adding subsidies for nuclear and coal-fired power plants—a policy cocktail that opponents say is backward-looking and harmful to the economy, consumers and the environment."
"The Ohio Senate and House have agreed on a new state budget that includes language to ban Rights of Nature enforcement. Gov. Mike DeWine signed the legislation into law on Thursday."
"For the past five years, wind developers in Ohio have faced what they describe as among the most restrictive turbine-siting rules anywhere in the United States."
"Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit in Ingham County Circuit Court on Thursday that seeks to decommission the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline across the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac."
"Lake Erie’s Sandusky Bay is already struggling with a species of toxin-producing algae, another sign that the rest of the lake’s western basin is likely headed for another massive bloom this summer."
While environmental journalists often focus on regulatory wrestling matches in Washington, D.C., a seasoned New York Times investigative reporter argues the most important stories are those in the real communities where bureaucratic impacts are felt. Three-time Pulitzer winner Eric Lipton makes the case for public service in journalism that tells the environment story from the outside in.
