The Great Lakes still gleam and sparkle — but their waters are heavy with the weight of what we’ve done. Algal blooms cloud once-clear bays. Shorelines erode under rising waves. 

The lakes are the eternal vessels of what we’ve left behind: aging pipes, invasive species, and poisoned fish. And it’s all amid a warming climate.

Feeding this system is the Detroit River — one of its vital arteries. It’s moved ore and industry, waste and wildlife. A crossing. A corridor. A dumping ground.

Now, a billion-dollar cleanup is on the table. But this isn’t just about sediment and sludge. It’s about legacy and injustice — and whether we can learn to care for what we once used thoughtlessly.

Laura Rubin, director of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, has spent years asking that question. She joined The Metro on Wednesday to discuss some of the most urgent or overlooked threats to water health across the state.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

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A new study highlights the importance of removing “forever chemicals” from drinking water.

What are PFAS?

PFAS are chemicals that take a long time to break down in the environment. They can also build up in the human body and cause a variety of health problems.

Researchers took blood samples from people living near a contaminated site in southwest Michigan. They compared PFAS levels in those who drank city water to people who have private wells.

Courtney Carignan is an environmental researcher at Michigan State University. She says PFAS turned up in people’s blood three years after officials cleaned up the water.

“We still saw higher levels of PFAS in the blood of our participants who drank higher levels of contaminated water compared to those who had much lower levels in their water,” she said.

Scientists have been evaluating the impacts of PFAS for years. Carignan says this study is the first of its kind.

“No other studies really have looked at exposure from other sources like paper mills,” she said. “There are a lot of other types of industries that have used PFAS in the past, or may still currently be using PFAS, and there just really aren’t a lot of studies looking at those kinds of communities and releases.”

EPA proposes looser restrictions

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to rescind Biden-era limits on four kinds of PFAS and delay enforcement of limits on two other kinds.

Carignan says that’s not the right approach.

“These interventions to reduce PFAS in drinking water are really important,” she said. “The higher the level is in the drinking water for these PFAS, the more kinds of health effects you would see in the population.”

State lawmakers propose testing

Michigan has its own PFAS standards and is taking steps to protect people.

State Sen. Mark Huizenga (R-Walker) and Rep. Julie Rogers (D-Kalamazoo) proposed bills to test children for PFAS. They are SB 298 and HB 4499.

Carignan says people can learn more at the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team website or PFAS Exchange.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has lifted the emergency order on the city of Flint’s drinking water.

Subscribe to the Detroit Evening Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

The EPA announced Monday that Flint’s water system is now in compliance with lead standards and has replaced over 97% of lead pipes carrying water to homes.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin says it’s a major accomplishment.

“The EPA has been working closely with our state and local partners in Flint, Michigan for several years to restore safe drinking water. It’s been a long, arduous journey, but significant progress has been made over the last decade to revitalize their water infrastructure and ultimately achieve this goal,” Zeldin said. “It’s been more than nine years since the emergency order was placed in January 2016, after a switch in drinking water source caused the corrosion of pipes and leaching of lead into resident’s homes. 

–Reporting by Bre’Anna Tinsley, WDET News.

Other headlines for Tuesday, May 20, 2025:

• The state has launched an initiative it hopes will make it easier for workers and employers to manage substance abuse recovery. The Michigan Recovery Friendly Workplace program provides education for managers, owners and human resources staff on policies, practices and issues related to substance use disorder. 
• Detroit Champions of Hope and Black Mother’s Breastfeeding Association Mommy Ambassadors are inviting families to the “Capture Black Joy” event at 5 p.m. Friday, May 30, at the James E. Tate Community Center, 21511 W. McNichols Rd. Registration is open to the first 50 families with children under 7, and includes access to giveaways, community resources and a free family portrait.
• Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has declared May as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

They’re back.

Algae are growing in western Lake Erie as they do every year, posing a potential health threat to people and pets.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitors Lake Erie for harmful algal blooms. Each spring, it estimates how large and toxic they might become.

NOAA oceanographer Rick Stumpf tells WDET on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 10 being the worst — this year’s bloom should be relatively mild.

“Right now, we’re estimating between 2.5 and 4.5,” he said.

What is a harmful algal bloom?

According to NOAA, harmful algal blooms form when colonies of microscopic algae called cyanobacteria grow out of control, creating a bluish green scum on the surface of the lake.

“It looks quite green, almost like a green sawdust,” Stumpf said.

Under the right conditions, the algae produce a toxin that can make people sick if they swallow it. In 2014, a toxic algal bloom contaminated Toledo’s drinking water, shutting the system down for several days.

When it rains, it pours

Stumpf says the size and severity of a bloom depends on how much phosphorus the algae can feed on. The main source of phosphorus is farm fertilizer that runs off into the Maumee River when it rains. Stumpf says scientists take water samples from the river, which empties into the lake.

“We look at what comes down the Maumee River from the beginning of March through July,” he said.

The samples they’ve collected so far indicate a mild bloom this summer. But that could change depending on how much rain falls.

Click here to see the latest Harmful Algal Bloom forecast

“We’ll update this weekly until we come up with what we consider the official forecast in July,” Stumpf said.

Budget cuts threaten the lab’s work

NOAA and the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory have been doing this work for decades. But the Trump administration has slashed jobs and funding at the agency, which also runs the National Weather Service. A ProPublica investigation found GLERL has lost a third of its staff since February 2025 and is struggling to buy testing equipment.

Stumpf says harmful algal bloom research is vital.

“Our goal is to protect health so that people are aware there are blooms and that there’s a risk,” he said.

But it’s not just people. Stumpf says toxic blooms can be fatal to pets.

“It does, unfortunately, kill several dogs each summer somewhere in the U.S.,” he says. “So, I can’t emphasize enough, if you see scum in a pond or the lake, please keep your dog out of the water.”

More stories from The Metro

A group of five environmental organizations is pushing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to take a deeper look at environmental impacts from the proposed restart of the Palisades plant in Southwest Michigan.

A panel of NRC judges heard oral arguments this week to decide whether to hold a hearing.

The five groups — Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Three Mile Island Alert and Nuclear Energy Information Service — filed a motion to have the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board reconsider several regulatory requirements for the restart going forward.

One contention from the groups is that the NRC should prepare an “Environmental Impact Statement” going into more detail than the agency did in its draft “Environmental Assessment.”

Terry Lodge, an attorney representing the environmental groups, said at Thursday’s hearing the existing environmental assessment doesn’t look closely enough at the potential for earthquakes.

“That is particularly important because there is, of course, going to be additional radioactive waste stored there.”

The NRC’s draft environmental assessment for the Palisades restart plan found there would be no significant environmental impact.

That finding came in part because the plant’s buildings are still standing, and nuclear waste is already being stored on site. Resuming operations at Palisades would likely have similar impacts to what happened there prior to 2022, the NRC concluded.

At Thursday’s hearing, a lawyer for the NRC said the five groups lacked standing to bring the claims, which she said came too late in the process anyway.

“Put plainly, there is no good cause if the information being challenged is not actually new and could have been raised earlier,” said NRC attorney Anita Ghosh Naber.

Holtec International has said it hopes to resume generating power at Palisades by the end of this year. The NRC has said it plans to complete its regulatory approval process by the end of July.

At a recent Detroit City Council meeting, a number of people spoke during public comment period about Detroit’s Solar Neighborhood Initiative. 

People are making allegations that blight tickets are being used by the city to take property in the name of solar developments. 

While residents say they’re not opposed to renewable energy, some are questioning the city’s process for constructing solar neighborhood arrays. 

The city’s Legal Department will provide an update at Tuesday’s city council meeting on the solar neighborhood initiative. 

Metro Producer Jack Filbrandt sat down with Detroit Documenter Hannah O’Neal and Coordinator Noah Kincade to learn more about the development. 

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

Bees’ pollinating presence helps to ensure the vitality of our food systems. 

The work of bees isn’t just happening in fields of wildflowers or quiet suburban gardens. Bees in urban neighborhoods also have an important role to play.

The nonprofit Detroit Hives has turned vacant lots into thriving pollinator habitats and community green spaces. That work includes planting pollinator-friendly trees in neighborhoods that need canopy, beauty and biodiversity. One of the group’s recent projects was at the Finney Community Arboretum and Botanical Garden, which they hope to transform into a thriving community space for pollinators and residents alike.

Detroit Hives Co-founders Tim Paule Jackson and Nicole Lindsey joined The Metro on Monday to discuss their work. 

–Segment produced by WDET’s Amanda Le Claire.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Interlochen Public Radio on April 30, 2025. 

At a giant dirt lot off a side road in Emmet County, the air smells sharply of pine.

Enormous piles of logs and branches sit around the property.

Terry and Nancy Chamberlin drag pine branches out of the bed of a black pickup truck and a small trailer — trees from their five-acre property in Alanson.

“We got hit real hard on this. We went out here — I think this is our 10th double trip down here in three days — and we’re just having a ball doing this,” Terry said. “And then I can start in the woods, which is going to take me two years to clean up.”

Debris from a massive ice storm at the end of March was strewn across the region. A lot of it fell on power lines, causing widespread outages.

But now, the same debris that knocked out the power a few weeks ago could be used to make electricity.

Utilities worked to clear much of the debris from power lines, and it was up to local emergency management teams and road commissions to figure out what to do with debris piling up around right of ways along the road and on private land.

So some set up these drop off sites, where people can bring branches and trees that were damaged or destroyed by the ice.

Lindsey Walker, who works in outreach for Emmet County Recycling, said they were able to pivot to collecting wooden debris. Usually, a company will come through to grind wood debris people drop off at the county’s waste facility into wood chips.

“We have to justify mobilizing these very expensive grinders and haulers of this material. And so every two years, we’re normally grinding our wood waste,” she said. “We need to have about 5,000 cubic yards on the ground at any time, and now we’ve got about 10 times the amount of that.”

Some established drop-off sites have been open around the clock, receiving debris by truck, trailer and even dump trucks.

“Having sites that are free and ample space for the public to bring debris is really important,” Walker said. “So this site has plenty of capacity for further debris, and then once we get that material ground, then we’re hauling, and so there’s this process of cleaning up sites as they go along. This is like us doing the best that we can with the resources that we have.”

Some of the woody debris might go to places like landscaping businesses to use as mulch. But they’re also selling it to biomass facilities nearby, which will turn that into energy.

“I like to use the little saying that we were green before green was cool,” said Tom Clift, the director of biomass operations at NorthStar Clean Energy, a company that runs four such facilities, including one in Grayling. “We’ve been in the renewable power business for a long time.”

NorthStar is one of the companies buying and burning that wooden debris from the storm. It uses that to create electricity. In all, the facility powers up to 38,000 homes. It works with another company, AJD Forest Products, to source and organize deliveries.

“All wood is graded by different levels,” he said. “Biomass levels are really looking at the [British thermal unit] of the wood. If it’s a higher quality BTU product they’ll pay more because it will burn better.”

Clift said they’re not cutting down trees for wood to produce that power.

“Any wood product that we use here was either going to be left on the forest floor, to turn into methane and be released on its own, or it’s other materials that would have gone to the landfill,” he said.

Dealing with forest management and debris after natural disasters is something other areas of the country have been trying to figure out as well, such as places in the southeast hit by Hurricane Helene.

But officials say this is an unusual issue in northern Michigan, which hasn’t typically faced the same kinds of disasters. Having biomass facilities in the region make dealing with debris in this way easier.

Biomass refers to a range of fuels, from animal manure to trash to wood. Using biomass for energy has a long history. For instance, in the United States residue from wood pulp manufacturing has been a popular source of fuel for electricity over the decades, though that has declined, said Brent Sohngen, a professor at Ohio State University who studies the economics of forestry.

The relationship between biomass-fueled energy and climate is far from straightforward.

Public health researchers and environmental groups have raised alarms about biomass for years, pointing to pollution from facilities, health issues and harm to nearby communities, which are often communities of color or low-income communities, according to advocates. Critics say framing of biomass energy as better for the climate is misleading; it can rely on logging, and burning matter like wood also emits greenhouse gases. And some argue the focus should instead be on cleaner forms of energy, such as solar.

There are situations where biomass-fueled energy will emit more carbon than it saves, Sohngen said — for instance, logging old growth trees for fuel. But in circumstances like the ice storm, biomass could be considered a carbon-neutral energy option, because that wooden debris would otherwise decompose over time, emitting greenhouse gases.

“The nice thing about taking that material and using it for electricity is that it creates electricity, and if you’re creating extra units of electricity from that material, then you’re potentially offsetting some other source of electricity on the system on the grid,” such as coal, he said.

Removing woody debris from the landscape to burn for electricity poses other issues. One example: Dead and dying trees provide a wide range of benefits that should be considered before removing them.

“There’s huge numbers of bugs that will basically use that wood material for growing themselves, and there’s animals or birds or other kinds of things that’ll use the bugs for their own life cycle,” said Sohngen. “It’s really important that, you know, we can’t just take all of the dead material out of a forest and expect a forest to function well.”

There may also be an increasing interest in biochar following disasters like Helene, he said. Biochar is an almost pure form of carbon made from heating up materials like plant matter, and can be spread out in farm fields or forests.

“What we found is that this biochar material has such a long life that it’s a way to lock up a lot of carbon in the forest system for many, many years — millennia, even,” he said.

At another drop-off site in Emmet County, Lindsey Walker walked around yet another mound of logs and branches. Biochar is on her mind as well.

“We rank it by highest and best use,” she said of dealing with the debris. “In my world of worlds, we would be making biochar out of this, because biochar has such value for composting operations, for water filtration, for sequestering PFAS. I mean, the opportunities for biochar are endless.”

But such operations aren’t an option right now, she said, so they turned to biomass and other uses, like mulch for landscaping.

For now, some debris drop-off sites will be open until things slow down, though others are closing.

Road commissions are asking people not to leave wood along right-of-ways. It’s also been a dry spring so far, and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has some restrictions on burning in place and recommends that people check on burn permits and conditions in their area.

One Cheboygan road commission official told IPR they reached out to people in the timber industry to ask about selling the wood they’re collecting at sites. The only reply they’ve received so far came from a lobbying group, which said the wood chip market is flooded.

Southeast Michigan is wrapping up April with temperatures trending slightly higher than average, according to the National Weather Service. Despite several days in the 80s, early April brought cooler conditions.

“Overall, I think we are coming in just slightly above normal,” meteorologist Trent Frey told WDET. “We did have a couple of really hot days. We had 83 degrees on the 18th and then we had 80 [degrees] on the 23rd and 82 [degrees] again on the 24th.”

Rainfall totals for the month are near typical levels, with just under 3 inches. 

Frey say a low-pressure system is expected to move in Thursday into Friday, bringing widespread showers and a drop in temperatures.

“This week is kind of a microcosm of the whole month,” Frey said. “We’ll be kind of up and down the rest of this week.”

Looking ahead to summer, Frey says the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center gives southeast Michigan a 30% to 40% chance of warmer-than-normal conditions.

Detroit has some of the worst air quality in the nation, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association. 

Subscribe to the Detroit Evening Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

The organization’s “State of the Air” report gives the region an “F” grade in ground level ozone pollution, a “D” in particle pollution, and a failing grade overall in pollution levels above federal standards. 

The research finds metro Detroit has the sixth worst year-round particle pollution in the U.S.  

High levels of air pollution can cause various health issues including asthma attacks and lung cancer, as well as impact other health events such as heart attacks and strokes, the Lung Association reports.

“Unfortunately, too many people in Detroit are living with unhealthy levels of ozone and particle pollution,” said Kezia Ofosu Atta, advocacy director for the Lung Association in Michigan, in a statement. “This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies. We urge Michigan policymakers to take action to improve our air.”

Read the full report at lung.org/research/sota.

More headlines for Wednesday, April 23, 2025:

• Detroit City Council member Gabriella-Santiago Romero has been disqualified from having her name on the city’s August primary election ballot. Wayne County officials say she had an unpaid campaign finance fee, preventing her appearance on the ballot. However, Santiago-Romero issued a release Tuesday saying she has filed all paperwork on time and that the county wrongly assessed the fee. 
• Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens says she’s running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat next year. She made the announcement in a campaign video Tuesday morning.
• Henry Ford Health is offering free heart health screenings on Saturday at six Henry Ford Hospitals, including Grand Blanc, Clinton Township, Rochester, Providence Southfield, Warren and Wyandotte.
• Efforts to beautify Detroit are showing results, as four million daffodils have bloomed in neighborhoods, parks and medians across the city. The General Services Department’s Floriculture Division says the best showings are in Jayne Playground, Gabriel Richard Park, LaSalle Park and on Oakman Boulevard between Linwood and Dexter. Officials say they hope to have 10 million daffodil bulbs planted in the city one day.
• The Detroit Pistons are getting ready for another first round playoff game on Thursday night. The team won its first playoff game since 2008 when they beat the Knicks in New York 100-94 on Monday night. The series is now tied at a game each.

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

The city of Detroit has a lot of concrete streets, slabs of road and old industrial buildings. 

But green spaces like Palmer Park provide an outlet to connect with nature. The park is home to one of the city’s old growth forests with diverse plant and animal life. 

And it’s just one of many spaces in Detroit hosting Earth Day celebrations and events this week to inspire environmental awareness and encourage community involvement.

On Sunday, the park will host Art in the Trees, an outdoor art exhibition among the trees in Palmer Park’s old growth forest featuring large-scale sculptures, music, activities and more.

Event organizer Mark Loeb joined The Metro on Earth Day to share more about the event.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

More stories from The Metro on Tuesday, April 22:

• Detroit’s Pope Francis Center leader reflects on late pontiff’s legacy
• WDET is ‘rooting’ itself in local environmental reporting with tree canopy project
• Detroit Public Library is ready to help in many ways
• Michigan ends mandatory life sentences for 19 and 20-year-olds convicted of murder

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

WDET is embarking on a new project exploring the multifaceted relationship between trees and community health in Michigan.

Amanda Le Claire, lead reporter and managing editor of the tree project, joined The Metro on Earth Day to talk about Detroit’s tree canopy and some of the most recent stories produced by the WDET newsroom.

Le Claire also shared a conversation she had with Andrew “Birch” Kemp, executive director of Arboretum Detroit, about a community forest restoration project on Detroit’s east side.

Studies have shown that urban tree canopies help make communities more climate resilient, reduce air pollution, and combat the urban heat island effect — exposing residents to higher risks of heat-related illness and higher cooling costs. 

The tree canopy project will dig into all of these topics and more over 24 months of reporting.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

–WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

More stories from The Metro on Tuesday, April 22:

• Detroit’s Pope Francis Center leader reflects on late pontiff’s legacy
• Enjoy ‘Art in the Trees’ at Palmer Park in celebration of Earth Day
• Detroit Public Library is ready to help in many ways
• Michigan ends mandatory life sentences for 19 and 20-year-olds convicted of murder

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

Experts and advocates with Oil and Water Don’t Mix said they don’t trust the federal government to properly vet Enbridge’s Great Lakes Tunnel Project.

Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expedited the permitting process for the project, which would cover the section of Line 5 that travels under the Straits of Mackinac.

The shortened timeline isn’t enough to confirm the project is safe, said Sean McBrearty, an organizer with the advocacy group.

“We’ve seen that we are not going to be able to trust the Trump administration to protect the Great Lakes,” he said. “And the Army Corps decision last week made that crystal clear, if it wasn’t before.”

The project is responding to what the Trump administration believes is “an energy emergency” under President Donald Trump’s January executive order “Declaring a National Energy Emergency,” the Corps said in a memo circulated last week. The order argues that the U.S. is too reliant on foreign energy and needs to increase domestic oil and gas production to protect national security.

The proposed tunnel around Line 5 would provide an extra layer of protection for the pipeline, according to Enbridge. The Canadian pipeline carries crude oil and natural gas liquids through the United States.

Advocates are concerned the tunnel won’t be effective and could actually do more harm to the bottomlands under the straits. That’s the land underneath the water in the lakes. It’s publicly owned, according to Michigan law.

Advocates with Oil and Water Don’t Mix said they want an independent review of Enbridge’s plans for the tunnel’s construction.

That includes Brian O’Mara, a geological engineer with decades of experience. The review process should take much longer than the fast-tracked plan the corps approved last week, he said.

“It’s really come down to the state of Michigan,” he said. “And hopefully they can do the right thing and give this project the scrutiny and the review that it deserves.” O’Mara said the bedrock underneath the straits is too fragile to support the tunnel project.

Enbridge has previously made its case before the Michigan Public Service Commission, where O’Mara testified. The commission didn’t find any problems with the company’s plans, Enbridge said in a statement.

The company has been working with the state and federal governments to reduce any negative impacts the tunnel could have, Enbridge said in a statement.

It’s also partnering with companies that have previously built tunnels in similar environments, the statement said.

But Enbridge still needs a permit from Michigan’s Submerged Lands Program. The advocacy group will direct their energy there, McBrearty said.

“We are going to focus on the state processes that are still functioning here in Michigan, rather than a dysfunctional and dishonest federal process.”

Editor’s note: Enbridge is among Michigan Public’s corporate sponsors.

The state House is poised to vote on legislation this week to allocate $75 million toward recovery efforts in northern Michigan following the massive ice storm that swept through the region last month.

The damage includes downed trees and utility poles, damage to buildings and schools and businesses forced to close.

State Rep. Parker Fairbairn (R-Harbor Springs) told the Michigan Public Radio Network that some communities would be bankrupted if they had to shoulder the cleanup and recovery costs on their own.

“The signal to people at the end of the day is, we’re here to help,” he said. “I mean, we’re estimating somewhere between $200- and $300 million worth of damage. I think it’s going to be much more than that and there’s a lot of things we can’t really estimate right now.”

The $75 million appropriation would help leverage another $225 million in federal disaster funds. If approved this week by the House, it would still have to be approved by the Michigan Senate.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has declared a state of emergency across much of northern Michigan. She also asked President Donald Trump for a federal emergency declaration which would make the area eligible for more federal relief.

There was also a bill introduced last week that would lift minimum school instructional day requirements for schools located in counties covered by the governor’s winter storm emergency decree. Those counties include Alcona, Alpena, Antrim, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Crawford, Emmet, Mackinac, Montmorency, Oscoda, Otsego and Presque Isle.

Rep. Cam Cavitt (R-Cheboygan) said it does not make sense to require students to remain in school to make up days lost due to a natural disaster.

“Our students just went through one of the most horrifying storms they will ever experience,” said Cavitt in a written statement.

“Things have been hard…We need to take steps to help these kids and their families, not force them to sit in schools that lack air conditioning until July.”

The deer population has increased significantly in southeast Michigan, and as a result, so has the number of deer-related car crashes.

The high population has other negative impacts as well, such as crop damage and forest regeneration issues, leading some local communities to seek options for culling deer populations.

Chad Fedewa, a deer expert with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said the absence of natural predators in the area creates the perfect conditions for deer to repopulate quickly.

“Fifty to sixty years ago there weren’t many deer in southeast Michigan,” he said. “But over the decades, we’ve done a pretty good job of restoring deer populations in the state, and they have become very accustomed to living in and around people.”

Some people have suggested trapping and moving deer or sterilization, but Fedewa says those methods are more timely, costly, and not effective. Instead, he says, professional shooters are the most effective, practical and humane option for culling deer in urban areas.

“Sharp shooting methods [are] very effective, you can remove a pretty significant number of deer in a small amount of time,” Fedewa said. “And often these programs are done in conjunction with process where those deer do get donated to food banks.”

Regulated hunting and some archery programs have been used in the past to manage deer populations, but aren’t ideal for suburban and urban areas. Fedewa says professional sharp shooters would be optimally suited as they use specialized equipment that minimizes public disturbance.

The cities of East Lansing, Farmington Hills and Ann Arbor are all considering multiple strategies for managing deer population, including sharp shooting.

As Earth Day approaches, we ask the question: do we recycle correctly? As part of the weekly series MichMash, host Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben sat down with Conan Smith from the Michigan Environmental Council. They discuss how we could recycle better. 

Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode:

• Proposals to expand Michigan’s bottle bill
• What is “wish-cycling?”
• How vape pens are affecting recycling goals

Michigan’s waste stream shows the state annually sends to landfills at least $130 million in cans and bottles with a 10-cent returnable deposit, according to the Michigan Sustainable Business Forum.

Smith says this is one of the reasons why an expansion of Michigan’s bottle bill is needed. The expansion would allow for easier ways for people to return and deposit bottles instead of just recycling them in their bins. 

“On average, if you take your tin can and you put it in the recycling, that tin can is probably going to be some other type of aluminum product,” Smith said. “If you take that same can and you return it for your ten cents, it’s going to become a tin can six times every year.”

Smith said although it’s not bad to recycle by simply using your recycling bin, it is more efficient to deposit for ten cents for better usage.  

More from WDET:

• Why Gen Z is gravitating toward vaping and e-cigarettes
• Why it’s time to reform or repeal Michigan’s bottle return law
• Changes could be coming to the way Michigan recycles

Detroit’s General Service Department is looking to increase the tree canopy across the city to improve citizens’ quality of life. The department is accepting requests from residents for tree plantings in their neighborhoods.

The free program is open to residents and small businesses to plant a tree on the berm in front of their property.

Savion Stephens, tree planting program manager for the city of Detroit, says trees can help improve residents’ quality of life.

“And what that looks like is improving air quality over time, conserving water, reducing soil erosion, filtering runoff, reducing flooding, and even things like lowering energy costs and raising property values,” he said.

Trees are also known to trap pollutants such as dirt, ash, pollen and smoke which can help those with asthma.

Stephens says the city plants over 50 different species of tree throughout the city.

“They’re primarily urban tolerant trees for public and private property, including some native species like oak and elm,” he said.

The planting process involves three phases: utility marking, tree location marking, and tree planting. Eligibility for a tree is assessed based on site conditions, including utility lines and soil quality.

The city has planted up to 14,000 trees annually through this program.

Residents who would like to request a tree must fill out this form.

Detroit’s five reasons to plant a tree

1. Clean air. Trees absorb pollutants and improve air quality, reducing respiratory issues.
2. Cooler summer. A single tree can lower temperatures by up to 10°, providing shade and cutting cooling costs.
3. Stronger neighborhoods. Tree-lined streets increase property values and create a more welcoming community.
4. Flood prevention. Trees absorb excess rainwater, reducing the risk of street flooding.
5. Wildlife Habitat. Trees support birds, bees, and other beneficial wildlife, keeping our ecosystem balanced.