It was a snowy winter, and Ann Arbor used a lot of road salt to clear its streets: 4,057 tons as of March 19, according to city communications specialist Robert Kellar. That’s 656 tons more than last winter, though still around 1,800 tons shy of the most recent high in the winter of 2021–2022. Along with ice-melter applied by contractors and homeowners, some of it ends up in storm sewers and the Huron River tributaries they feed.
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At risk are dozens of conservation easements, grants, and farm programs worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In Michigan, 90 percent of USDA funding is allocated to commodity conservation, leaving new farmers and small agricultural businesses particularly vulnerable.
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The Trump administration’s plan to slash payments on research grants has put thousands of U-M jobs at risk. But other local researchers are in even more immediate jeopardy: those who work directly for the federal government, at the EPA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).
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In February, Shira Haderlein and a friend took a walk in Mary Beth Doyle Park to decompress. But as they approached the detention pond, they discovered the corpses of dozens of Canada geese.
“I mean, it was just littered,” she says. “It felt apocalyptic.”
The first signs were subtle but undeniable: last November, Matthaei Botanical Garden staff began noticing trees stripped of bark or cut down entirely, leaving only a pointed stump behind, and a pile of leaves and sticks along the edge of the creek slowly growing into an unmistakable dam. Those efforts soon raised the level of the creek by more than a foot for several hundred yards upstream.
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Wozniak is executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. It was founded in 1999, she says, “to address some of our state’s most egregious problems regarding the air we breathe, the water we drink, and protecting public health and the natural environment.”
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The U-M’s $631 million dorm complex on the old Elbel Field isn’t even finished, and Evan Pratt is already worried about its future. That’s because Allen Creek flows underground beside the property—and with Ann Arbor getting wetter, the county’s outgoing water resources commissioner says, it’s getting harder to keep it there.
Read MoreA regular customer of the former location on E. Liberty, Jessica Cichowlas secured a new storefront in a plaza along the burgeoning Jackson Rd. corridor in Scio Twp.
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Dohner compares MIFarmLink to “a matchmaking service that connects farmland owners and seekers who would otherwise never meet.” According to the Conservation District, land access is the greatest barrier for beginning farmers; meanwhile most farmland owners lack a succession plan. MIFarmLink neatly solves the problem with an online tool that lets owners list their available properties and farmland seekers post their professional profiles.
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“The number of cases has exploded,” says Beth Ann Hamilton, communications coordinator for the Washtenaw County Health Department.
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Is global warming making our springs earlier and longer, or is this year a fluke? Area scientists and nature lovers say it’s too soon to tell.
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Ask most Michiganders about the hazards of driving in a state full of wildlife and you’re likely to hear about run-ins with deer. But on a recent Saturday afternoon, a different kind of traffic hazard asserted itself.
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In March, Michigan’s Agricultural Preservation Fund Board awarded $2 million to eight farmland preservation programs across the state to purchase development rights that protect land for agricultural use. Five of the eight are in Washtenaw County.
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When it’s completed next year, the $10 million, 11,000-square-foot Edward and Rosalie Ginsberg...
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On Facebook’s Buy No Things Ann Arbor page, Stacie Cowie recently put out a request for old copies...
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At the end of February, the city’s Parks Advisory Commission heard an unusual pitch: The local...
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At the start of this new year, a barking dog and a white wisp of smoke heralded a new era in...
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“It was fantastic,” says AAPS parent Rebecca Meuninck. The former Ecology Center deputy director...
Read MoreQ. I have a question about the Gelman Plume cleanup. After contaminated groundwater is treated to reduce dioxane levels, it is discharged into a tributary of Honey Creek, which joins the Huron River upstream from Ann Arbor’s...
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