The Environment Report

Sea lampreys might be getting a little too comfortable in northern Michigan's Inland Waterway.  We'll hear about a $21 million dollar pest that keeps scientists on their toes.

It’s been a cold and snowy winter and scientists are figuring out what this will mean for lake levels. 

A team has been searching for the oldest European shipwreck in the Great Lakes.  They found a wooden beam in Lake Michigan.  But there’s a debate about what it really is. 

Michigan farmers are happy there’s finally a new farm bill.  Environmentalists are pretty happy too.  We’ll hear about some huge changes in the farm bill and what they’ll mean for the Great Lakes.

People who raise chickens and other animals in their backyards could soon lose some state protection.It would mean local zoning boards would decide whether to allow small farms in residential areas.  We’ll hear why state officials argue the changes are necessary.

Is this the winter of your dreams… or the worst you’ve ever lived through?  We’ll talk to a scientist who’s developed a winter misery index.  She’ll run the numbers for us to see how this winter stacks up.

It took Enbridge Energy 17 hours before they knew they had a problem during the Kalamazoo River oil spill.  Part of the problem was that emergency responders didn’t recognize what was going on.  We’ll take a look at how emergency responders learn about pipelines in their backyard.

We'll talk to a guy who's hunting for new medicines at the bottom of the Great Lakes. We'll hear why bacteria in the Lakes could lead to new drugs.

A teeny-tiny form of pollution is threatening the Great Lakes. Minuscule plastic beads are used in hundreds of products, like body scrubs and toothpaste. And they're too small to get completely filtered out by sewage treatment plants. We talk to a researcher who's spent the last two summers trolling the lakes for the pollution, and found the beads in all five. 

When water flows downhill, it carries all kinds of things with it. And when it comes to the water at a sewage treatment plant, some pretty weird things can turn up. Antidepressant drugs, Ibuprofen, hormones, and DEET to name a few. They're known as "emerging contaminants." So what is all this stuff doing to the fish in the water? We’ll talk to researchers about what they know, and what they’re hoping to find out.

If you look hard enough, you can find some strange chemicals in your drinking water. So what should we do with that information?This is the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush in for Rebecca Williams.The nation has its eyes on a nine-county area in West Virginia that’s under a “state of emergency.” A coal-processing chemical leaked into a river and poisoned the drinking water there. Clean-up is ongoing. But around much of the nation, the fact that chemicals get into our drinking water has been known for some time. We’re talking tiny amounts. Scientists use terms like “parts per billion” - or nanograms.The kinds of chemicals found depends on what gets into the water.

The government is being asked to approve 'natural' labeling for foods containing genetically engineered ingredients.And... the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released eight options to stop Asian Carp from invading the Great Lakes, including doing nothing. The Corps did not make a recommendation, leaving it with Congress and the eight Great Lakes states to figure it out. It could be too late by the time everyone figures out the best option.

Some businesses and people can choose what company provides their electricity, but most cannot. There’s a ten percent cap on free-market purchases of power. It’s first come/first served. But, when you’re running a business and your competitor gets to buy cheaper power, you’re at a disadvantage. There’s a call for complete deregulation of the power market in Michigan.

We go out at night, trying to get the attention of some owls (without much luck) … and we hear why you might have better luck finding one type of owl near your local airport. With their wide open, treeless spaces, airports can look a lot like home to snowy owls, who spend most of the year north of the Arctic Circle. 

Meet the Gold family. They're modern day homesteaders. Their goal is to live as self-sufficiently as possible on their three acre farm in Ypsilanti. (They often say they use yesterday's knowledge combined with today's technology.)Two years ago they started the Michigan Folk School. The school promotes traditional folks arts and the preservation of forest and farmland.To find out why the family started the school, and why they became homesteaders in the first place, listen to this week's Environment Report, right here.And for a bonus feature, check out this interview with six year-old Amelie Gold. She wanted to explain how the family goes into the forest to tap maple trees. She walks us through the process, and you can listen by clicking here.