By Ethan Bakuli, Planet Detroit

This article was republished with permission from Planet Detroit. Sign up for Planet Detroit’s weekly newsletter here.

In the middle of a five-day power outage brought on by an early spring storm, Woody Gontina’s house appeared to be the only one on his street that still had its lights on.

At the time, Gontina had just installed a 5.4-kilowatt solar-and-battery-storage system at his home.

“Because of the solar and the battery, we had our whole house powered day and night throughout that outage,” recalls Gontina.

While Gontina could not have foreseen the storm’s impact, it was an early proof of concept for the Royal Oak city commissioner, who was in the early stages of encouraging his neighbors to install solar panels on their properties through an initiative called Solarize Royal Oak.

In the past few years, a largely grassroots solar installation trend has taken shape across a handful of Michigan towns and counties, as residents like Gontina have sought to capitalize on group-buy discounts and federal incentives to upgrade their homes.

“There wasn’t really a champion to push (Solarize) forward,” said Gontina. “I had the time and the interest to do it, and I also understood that the city was very challenged in terms of resources and didn’t have the time to meet an initiative like that.”

Now overseen by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, the Solarize program has expanded to Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, as well as Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties, where city and county officials have taken over administering it to homeowners and businesses.

While federal incentives for solar have shrunk and solar installations have declined under the Trump administration, advocates of Solarize are still encouraging residents and businesses to take advantage of remaining opportunities and to embrace renewable energy sources amid utility rate hikes.

“As we see our energy costs continuing to rise, that’s really the biggest argument for renewables,” said Gontina. “Our electric provider, DTE, has demonstrated that they will not stop continuing to ask for increases at a regular pace until there’s something legislatively done to stop that.”

National grassroots solar installation program appeals to Michigan homeowners

While Solarize has found its footing in Michigan in the past decade, its origins trace back to 2009, when residents in Portland, Or. began hosting neighborhood seminars with local contractors to learn about residential solar panel installation. The program rapidly expanded the city’s solar footprint, according to a report from the Energy Trust of Oregon.

For Ann Arbor energy manager and resident Julie Roth — who now works for the city’s Office of Sustainability & Innovation — hearing about the early success of Solarize was enough of a rationale to try it in her neighborhood in 2019. At the time, she was interested in installing solar panels on her roof but was concerned about the high upfront costs and the wide range of contractor quotes.

“I pitched it to my solar installer (contractor),” said Roth. “I said, ‘Well, what do you think if I get a bunch of people here and we all do it together. Would you give us a discount?’ He said, ‘Sure,’ and came up with a sort of discount structure.”

After she sent out an invite on Nextdoor and Facebook, Roth says, she was surprised at the turnout.

“I thought that I would have three people sitting around my dining room table awkwardly trying not to make eye contact with the installer or me, and then we would all go home, and it would be over,” said Roth.

Instead, 40 people showed up to that first meeting at her house. Within a year, about a dozen people from that night installed solar panel systems on their homes.

“It basically started because we were trying to overcome barriers to adoption,” she said. “We didn’t have any staff. It started as a volunteer thing. We didn’t have any money, and so with no resources and very little bandwidth, what can you do?”

As residents like Gontina and Roth have become ambassadors for Solarize, encouraging neighbors to host their own events and create more group-buy discounts on solar, it’s brought greater interest from county governments and statewide organizations seeking to broaden its appeal.

“We really want to position ourselves as a resource, as an advocate, and relationship builder,” said Julie Lyons Bricker, chief sustainability officer for Oakland County, one of the latest counties to adopt the Solarize program.

Since launching in 2021, the county’s Sustainability Office has focused on both improving energy efficiency across Oakland’s 62 cities, townships, and villages and guiding homeowners and businesses toward available incentives, says Lyons Bricker.

With Solarize Oakland County, the county hopes to raise awareness on how solar works, what’s needed to get it installed, and what people should expect from their contractors. Groups of residents can be matched with GLREA-approved vendors and receive a bulk discount of 5 to 15% on their solar panel purchases.

A diminishing landscape for solar installation

As momentum for solar installations has picked up in some communities across Michigan, the national solar industry has had to contend with tariff pressures and a freeze on approvals for major infrastructure projects, amid a pivot away from the clean energy policies and investments that emerged during the Biden administration.

Solar installations have declined, leading to an industry-wide disruption, with utility-scale solar installations down 16% and community solar down 25% in 2025, according to a recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

Last year, the Residential Clean Energy Credit — a 30% federal tax credit on solar, wind, and geothermal home installations — was cut six years short when Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July 2025, ending a credit that had been set to run through 2032.

“It’s an economic investment when you’re thinking about installing a system,” said Gontina. “Anything that is available to help with that investment only makes it easier.”

While the residential tax credit ended in December, multiple financial incentives for businesses and houses of worship remain active through the end of 2027. Bricker says the county is still trying to encourage commercial property owners to take advantage of that opportunity while it lasts.

For renters, lower-income residents, and those with roofs unsuitable for panels, rooftop solar programs like Solarize remain largely out of reach. The Trump administration’s termination of the federal Solar for All program in 2025 eliminated $156 million in Michigan projects designed to expand solar access for low-income households — projects already underway in Detroit, Highland Park, Benton Harbor, and beyond.

Community solar legislation, which would allow residents to subscribe to off-site solar arrays and receive bill credits without owning a system, has bipartisan support in Michigan but has yet to advance.

Solar panel parties spawn citywide energy push

Gontina says that the Solarize Oakland County program could help the rest of the county catch up to what individual towns like Royal Oak are attempting to do.

“You’re bringing a bigger tent to the picture so that more people feel like they have an opportunity to be included,” he said.

Although Solarize is transitioning toward a “top-down” approach, Roth credits the “grassroots” solar parties she and others hosted with helping grow the city’s residential solar installations over the last several years.

“It grows the movement more when you’re talking to your neighbors than when you’re just talking to a city representative,” said Roth. “The community engagement and buy-in and ownership are much higher, especially when you’re not just looking at getting solar up, you’re looking at engaging a community around energy.”

She added: “We’re there as technical experts to some degree, to add legitimacy, and to continue to bring people along, and to make sure that the installers are being responsive.”

Although Ann Arbor Solarize’s numbers have slowed down in recent years, city data shows that the number of residents installing solar panels has increased in tandem with the program’s launch in 2019 and the growth of the solar installation market.

Ann Arbor has averaged about 180 residential solar installations annually since 2020, compared to 17 per year between 2008 and 2019.

Nearly seven years later, the success of Ann Arbor’s Solarize program has contributed, in part, to the city’s push to create a municipal-owned utility designed to help residents and businesses access solar energy and battery storage without upfront costs. The program will be optional, and will supplement, not replace, the use of DTE’s electric grid, according to city documents.

Ann Arbor’s Sustainable Energy Utility, authorized by roughly 80% of voters, is designed in part to address those barriers. Unlike rooftop solar programs, it would allow residents and businesses to access solar and battery storage without upfront costs — with the city owning the equipment and customers paying a monthly rate. Pilot projects targeting lower-income neighborhoods are expected to launch in 2026, with citywide expansion planned for 2027.

Roth hopes the city’s trend in renewable energy adoption and utility ownership can be a model for other communities. These days, she relishes the sight of solar panels around Ann Arbor.

“You walk around, you walk your dog in the neighborhoods, and it’s like, ‘solar there, solar there, solar there,’” she said. “It’s so visible. And that’s really exciting to see the actual physical changes in your community.”

The post Residents across Michigan unite for solar discounts appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

There’s a city of fish living next to a nuclear power plant

Bruce Power is one of the largest nuclear generating stations in the world, and the warm water created as part of its operation creates a perfect environment for a diverse gathering of fish species.

We’re teaming up with Inspired Planet to take you inside this remarkable underwater world.

Join the exploration, LIVE, on April 22nd at 10am.

Learn more at https://GreatLakesNow.org/HiddenBelow

#LakeHuron #Fish #Fishing #NuclearPower #Radioactive #Science #Livestream #Explore

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The post The fish city near a nuclear power plant appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Catch the latest energy news from around the region. Check back for these monthly Energy News Roundups.

Ohio prosecutors are back to square one in their corruption case against two former FirstEnergy executives. Prosecutors accused former CEO Chuck Jones and senior vice president Mike Dowling of paying a state energy regulator a $4.3 million bribe. But the high-profile case ended in a mistrial after the jury couldn’t agree whether Jones and Dowling were guilty, even though others (including Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder) have been convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with the energy bribery scandal. A retrial is expected.

The Trump administration ordered two aging Indiana coal plants to be kept open another 90 days, through mid-June, at a cost utilities say is climbing into the hundreds of millions. The U.S. Department of Energy first moved to block the plants’ planned retirement in December, citing a need to prevent electricity shortages. Days after the administration extended its order, the Illinois and Minnesota attorneys general sued, arguing in separate filings that keeping the plants open would increase costs for ratepayers in their states.

A Wisconsin coal plant’s retirement is being delayed — again. Utility We Energies said it will continue operating the Oak Creek Power Plant’s two remaining coal units through the end of 2027 to ensure energy reliability and affordability. The utility previously pushed back the units’ retirement from 2024 to 2025, then to 2026, citing high energy demand. Groups opposed to extending the plant’s life said it will have negative environmental and health impacts and lead to higher costs for ratepayers.

The Trump administration and Japanese partners plan to build a massive data center in Ohio powered by its own gas plant, at a cost in the tens of billions of dollars. If completed as planned, the Pike County technology campus would be the largest single private-sector investment in state history, Cleveland.com reported. There are already questions, though, about the kinds of delays a project of this scale could face.

And northwest Indiana could lose 12,000 jobs by the mid-2030s if the steel sector continues business as usual, according to a new report from the Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute. If companies instead adopt cleaner technologies, the state could gain jobs while reducing carbon emissions and negative health impacts, the report found. Steelmaker, U.S. Steel, challenged some of the findings in the report that comes as Cleveland-Cliffs, another steelmaker, appears poised to recommit to coal at an Ohio steel mill.

More energy news, in case you missed it:

• General Motors temporarily laid off 1,300 workers at a Detroit electric vehicle plant, citing lower-than-expected demand for EVs, even as other reports suggest EV demand has risen again alongside oil prices.
• Google announced a deal with energy company DTE Energy for a 1-gigawatt data center near the Detroit airport.
• Also in Michigan, LG Energy Solution struck a $4.3 billion deal with Tesla to manufacture battery cells for utility-scale storage systems at a Lansing plant.
• BP locked out more than 800 workers at its Whiting, Indiana refinery, the largest refinery in the Midwest, amid stalled contract negotiations.
• Ohio regulators voted to open more than 8,000 acres of publicly owned land for fracking, making Egypt Valley Wildlife Area home to the largest fracking project on public lands in the state.

The post Ohio energy corruption case goes nowhere after jury deadlocks over bribery charges appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

By Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio

This article was republished here with permission from Wisconsin Public Radio.

A union leader representing federal Forest Service employees in Wisconsin says workers may have to move as part of the Trump administration’s plan to shutter regional offices.

The Forest Service announced Tuesday that the agency is moving its headquarters to Salt Lake City and closing nine regional offices, including in Milwaukee. Administrative and technical support in those offices will shift to six operational service centers, one of which will be located in Madison. The overhaul will also include 15 state directors to oversee operations in one or more states.

Brian Haas is president of the National Federation of Federal Employees Local 2165. The union represents employees in the Milwaukee regional office and the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. He said the restructuring mostly affects Milwaukee-area employees. Union officials estimate around 50 employees may be affected.

“The regional office actually already was hit a lot harder by people leaving, retiring, taking the different buyouts,” Haas said. “They’re already really down in their numbers.”

Haas said workers have been told they can continue working for the service as long as they’re willing to relocate or change job descriptions. When the reorganization was first announced last year, he said many employees transferred or relocated amid Trump’s return-to-office order.

The number of Forest Service employees in Wisconsin dropped from 645 to 539 between federal fiscal year 2025 and 2026, according to federal workforce data.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which houses the Forest Service, has been shifting thousands of employees out of Washington. Around 260 employees in the nation’s capital will be expected to relocate to Salt Lake City, according to the Associated Press.

“This is about building a Forest Service that is nimble, efficient, effective and closer to the forests and communities it serves,” Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said in a statement.

Trump administration officials said the move will improve forest management, save taxpayer money and boost employee recruitment.

“The official stance from the administration is that it is not a reduction in force, but the reality on the ground is that it is going to continue to drive people to leave the agency,” Haas said.

A USDA spokesperson said employees will receive information about relocation timelines, options and resources to support their decisions. The agency said the number of staff that will be moved beyond the nation’s capital is unknown at this time.

Current and former Forest Service employees say the Trump administration’s actions over the past year have created chaos and uncertainty with few answers. The elimination of regional offices and shift to state-based hubs will take place over the coming year.

No changes for national forest in Wisconsin, research facilities close

The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, or CNNF, has 235 employees who would be unaffected, according to Kaleigh Maze, a forest spokesperson. Maze said the forest and its district offices would see no changes to staffing.

“The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest is committed to ensuring that all operations — including wildfire readiness and response — continue without interruption,” Maze said.

Forest Service research facilities in 31 states will also close and be combined under a single research organization in Colorado. The agency’s website shows Rhinelander and Madison research sites would not be affected, but Haas said Rhinelander employees may also be required to move. As of 2023, the agency’s Forest Products Lab in Madison had 80 research scientists and 168 support staff.

Two other facilities are slated for closure in Wisconsin Rapids and Prairie du Chien. Paul Strong, former forest supervisor of the CNNF, said he’s unfamiliar with those sites and questioned whether USDA facilities may have been mistakenly included.

The Forest Service said a single research organization would speed up the use of science in forest management and reduce duplication. Strong told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” it’s unclear what the move will mean for existing and long-term research projects.

“What I think we should be concerned about is what kind of pressure and stress this puts on employees and how they’re being treated as public servants,” Strong said.

Under the reorganization, the Forest Service said there will be no changes to firefighters or their positions. But the Trump administration is seeking to bring firefighting efforts under a single agency, which would affect thousands of employees if implemented.

Former U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck served during the Clinton administration and lives in Wisconsin. He said he supports efforts to streamline the agency, noting past proposals to reorganize offices failed due to lacking support from congressional lawmakers.

Even so, he noted a similar attempt to move the Bureau of Land Management during Trump’s first term was later reversed. Dombeck said restructuring will likely cause the agency to lose more staff who choose not to uproot their families. He also fears the agency will lose ground on managing 193 million acres of national forests, climate change and wildland firefighting issues.

“I think this will be a real wake-up call to what the real values of national forests are,” Dombeck said. “We need to really ask this administration: what is the end game when we take a look at this level of chaos?”

Editor’s note: This story was updated with staffing figures on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest from the U.S. Forest Service.

Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2026, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.

The post Forest Service workers in Wisconsin may have to move after reorganization, union leader says appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

By Tracy Samilton, Michigan Public

The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan; Circle of Blue; Great Lakes Now at Detroit PBS; Michigan Public, Michigan’s NPR News Leader; and The Narwhal who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work HERE.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced new initiatives to tackle microplastics in the human body and drinking water on Thursday.

Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic – as small as nano-sized pieces – that are increasingly ubiquitous in water supplies and in the human body.

Zeldin said the environmental agency will add microplastics and pharmaceuticals to its list of concerning chemicals in drinking water. “For the first time in the program’s history, EPA is designating both microplastics and pharmaceuticals as priority contaminant groups,” he said.

Kennedy said the government will create a $144-million program called STOMP (Systematic Targeting of Microplastics).

“We are focusing on three questions, what is in the body, what’s causing harm, and how do we remove it?” Kennedy said. “We still do not have clear answers about causation or solutions,” Kennedy said. “We do not yet understand how these particles interact with the immune system, the endocrine system or the neurological system, and we do not have validated methods to remove them safely.”

But a number of environmental groups said the actions taken by the government aren’t sufficient.

“Microplastics are a serious – and growing – threat to our health and our environment,” Erin Doran of Food & Water Watch said in a statement. “Without monitoring of our drinking water, we can’t know the full scale of this crisis. Today’s announcement …ultimately falls short on its own. It does not reflect the urgent need for a comprehensive nationwide monitoring program for microplastics in drinking water now.”

Samantha Pickering leads the public and environmental public health program at the Michigan Environmental Council. She said the EPA’s acknowledgment of the problem is a good thing, but there’s more that should be done now, like adding microplastics to the government’s official list of contaminants in drinking water that must be monitored.

She said she agrees with the EPA that much more research needs to be done to determine the health effects of microplastics. But she said there’s enough evidence already that microplastics are bad for the environment and for humans.

“I appreciate that the EPA is acknowledging that they’re going to start watching it. but it needs to be shifted into a precautionary approach. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be able to start taking action,” she said.

Pickering said some states, including California and Michigan, are ahead of the U.S. EPA in tackling the problem. “Having the Great Lakes ecosystem, and so much Great Lakes shoreline, we’re a bit more responsible for our stewardship.”

Michigan will be conducting a pilot to test five different drinking water systems for the contaminants, she noted, and it will also, for the next three years, test about 200 of its inland lakes and streams for microplastics.

And Pickering said California has passed a law requiring the adoption of a system for testing drinking water supplies, as well as projects to keep plastics out of the marine environment.

The post U.S. EPA announces action on microplastics, but Michigan critics say it’s not enough appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

By James Bruggers, Inside Climate News

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

When former top Environmental Protection Agency official Judith Enck noticed a cavalcade of chemical and plastics industry lobbyists visiting the agency’s Washington headquarters in February, she wondered what could be up.

An answer came weeks later: The agency is moving toward resurrecting a proposal from the first Trump administration to ditch Clean Air Act regulations involving one of the industry’s go-to methods for chemically processing plastic waste into new industrial feedstocks or fuels.

The EPA is curiously approaching this by embedding a request for comments on so-called “advanced recycling” via a method known as pyrolysis in a rulemaking on an entirely different category of waste incineration.

“I thought, could it be a mistake, or are they quietly trying to push this through?” Enck, a former EPA regional administrator during the Obama presidency, wondered in an interview on Tuesday. Just one paragraph related to advanced recycling of plastics was included in a 17-page Federal Register notice for a proposed rule on wood incineration.

Either way, the stakes are significant, according to industry and environmental advocates alike. 

For several years, industry officials have pushed chemical processing of plastic waste as a primary solution to the global plastic waste crisis, while advocating for regulatory relief at the state and federal levels. The industry has also pressed for such processing to be a pillar of a possible global plastics treaty. 

“We support policies that recognize the products of advanced recycling as recycling and policies that recognize advanced recycling as a highly engineered manufacturing process that can produce new virgin equivalent plastics and chemicals,” according to the website of the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s primary lobbying group in the United States.

But environmental advocates view much of what the industry calls either chemical recycling or advanced recycling — and particularly the method known as pyrolysis — as a dirty, polluting sham.

“It’s not recycling,” said James Pew, director of the federal clean air practice at the environmental group Earthjustice. “To the extent these incinerators produce anything significant other than toxic pollution, a very small portion of the plastic waste they burn is turned into an oily waste that can be fed back into the chemical production process or burned [as] dirty fuel. And it encourages unlimited production of single-use plastics.”

The EPA’s movement toward easing clean-air rules to boost chemical processing of plastic waste comes amid growing concerns about a global plastics crisis.

The United Nations Environment Programme has estimated that the world produces 430 million metric tons of plastic each year, over two-thirds of which are short-lived products that soon become waste. A growing amount, or 139 million metric tons in 2021, gets tossed after just a single use. 

Plastic production is set to triple by 2060 under a “business-as-usual” scenario, and less than 9 percent is recycled. Plastic production and the mismanagement of plastic waste contribute to climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, U.N. officials have concluded.

Scientists have also found the smallest of plastic particles inside human bodies, increasing the risk of respiratory, reproductive and gastrointestinal problems and some cancers.

Plastics’ Chemical Recycling Problem

Because plastics are made of thousands of chemicals, they are not easily recyclable. Most plastic recycling is done through a mechanical process that separates certain types by chemical composition, then cleans, shreds, melts and remolds them. 

Pyrolysis, or the process of decomposing materials at very high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment, has been around for centuries. Traditional uses range from making tar from timber for wooden ships to transforming coal into coke for steelmaking.

More recently, major oil companies and small startups alike have sought to develop the technology as an alternative for recycling a wide variety of plastic waste, with limited success and serious pushback from environmental interests.

A 2023 report from Enck’s Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network examined 11 chemical recycling plants operating in the United States. Noting low output of recycled plastics and challenges such as fires and spills at production units, the report concluded the technology “has failed for decades, continues to fail, and there is no evidence that it will contribute to resolving the plastics pollution crisis.”

The chemical industry, however, has been steadfast in its backing of chemical recycling, including the pyrolysis method. On the same day the EPA announced it was developing a new rule on advanced recycling, the American Chemistry Council praised the agency. Since no oxygen is involved in pyrolysis, the group said, the process cannot be considered incineration and should not be regulated as such.

“These advanced recycling technologies convert used plastic into valuable feedstocks to make new products, rather than combusting the plastic for energy purposes or landfilling it,” said Ross Eisenberg, president of an arm of the council called America’s Plastic Makers, in a press release. 

Sixteen Industry Lobbyists Visit EPA

The details of what the EPA will propose have not yet been revealed. But the agency’s March 17 announcement and supporting documents point to the kind of regulatory relief it sought to provide during the first Trump term—before running out of time.

Pyrolysis has largely been regulated as incineration for three decades and has therefore had to meet stringent emission requirements for burning solid waste under the federal Clean Air Act. 

In the final months of the first Trump administration, the EPA proposed an industry-friendly rule change stating that pyrolysis does not involve enough oxygen to constitute combustion, and that emissions from the process should therefore not be regulated as incineration.

In 2023, the Biden administration reversed course after much criticism from environmental groups and some members of Congress.

The agency that year noted that it had “received significant adverse comments” on the provision. In taking final action to withdraw the proposal, the agency said the move would “prevent any regulatory gaps and ensure that public health protections are maintained.” 

The EPA’s recent request for comment on pyrolysis was included in a rule-making involving incinerators that burn wood or yard waste, which are sometimes used after natural disasters such as hurricanes. “Revising the definition would clarify that the … rule does not regulate pyrolysis units used in advanced recycling operations,” the agency said.

Beyond Plastics counted 13 representatives from chemical companies or lobbying associations on the EPA headquarters visitor log for Feb. 10, a month before the announcement. Three senior officials from the American Chemistry Council visited on Feb. 12.

“While communities across the country are dealing with the health and environmental costs of plastic pollution, the industry appears to have a direct line to the agency that is supposed to protect us,” Enck said. “These visitor logs are particularly concerning at a time when the Trump administration is rolling back environmental protections and is quietly proposing to remove Clean Air Act requirements from so-called ‘chemical recycling’ facilities. Why did the EPA bury such a major proposed change?”

A written statement from the EPA press office said existing solid waste incineration and pyrolysis regulations were vague, and that the agency is seeking information on an “appropriate remedy.” 

The agency has scheduled an online virtual public hearing for April 6.

Matthew Kastner, senior director of media relations for the American Chemistry Council, pointed to occasions in 2023 and 2024 when Enck appeared on the EPA visitor log. Both his group and hers, he said, “have the right under the First Amendment to petition the government.”

He added that the council’s member companies are regulated by the EPA, “thus engagement on issues ranging from compliance to policy development is both appropriate and expected.”

Earthjustice’s Pew is concerned that the EPA will exempt pyrolysis units from Clean Air Act permitting and any requirement to measure or report their emissions. The result would be, he said, “a perverse incentive” to build more of them.

“As a practical matter, this definition change would mean EPA is completely deregulating a whole class of incinerators, these so-called pyrolysis units,” he added. “And their pollution is really toxic.”

The post After Chemical Industry Lobbying, EPA Considers Dropping Clean Air Protections for Plastic Waste Recycling appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

The Trump administration plans to close four US Forest Service research facilities in Michigan, shifting scientists out of the state as it reorganizes and consolidates the agency.

Officials have not announced a closure date for the facilities, located in the Lower Peninsula communities of East Lansing and Wellston, between Manistee and Cadillac, and the Upper Peninsula communities of Houghton and L’Anse, saying changes will be implemented over the next year.

The Forest Service headquarters will also move from Washington, DC, to Salt Lake City in what Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins described as a measure to save money, boost logging and put workers “closer to the landscapes we manage.”

“Establishing a western headquarters in Salt Lake City and streamlining how the Forest Service is organized will position the Chief and operation leaders closer to the landscapes we manage and the people who depend on them,” Rollins said in a news release.

The announcement prompted dismay in Houghton, where workers with the US Forest Service Northern Research Station collaborate closely with researchers at Michigan Technological University and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. A smaller group in L’Anse conducts forest inventories and analysis.

“It’s very disappointing,” said David Flaspohler, dean of the university’s College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. “I understand priorities change from one administration to the next, and this administration is interested in increasing the volume of timber that is coming off of the national forests. To do that in a sustainable, safe way, you have to have people that are trained in the latest science and silviculture.”

Flaspohler estimated between 20 and 25 people work at the Houghton station, including scientists and other staff. The station has a “multidecadal history of partnerships” with researchers and foresters in the UP, he said. 

The heavily forested Upper Peninsula contains more than 8 million acres of forestland, split roughly evenly between private or locally owned timberland and state and federal forests.

Beyond conducting research that aims to keep northern forests healthy and productive, Flaspohler said, the lab is an important economic contributor to a region with scarce jobs.

“This lab with its many employees — who all had salaries and invested in the region just like any employed person does — that’s going to be lost.”

Two-thirds of facilities cut 

The Michigan facilities are part of a network of 57 nationwide. Nineteen will remain following the closures, with the Forest Service instead establishing regional hubs that serve multiple states. 

A Madison, Wisconsin, hub will serve Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri.

Michigan DNR spokesperson John Pepin said leaders in the state Forestry Resources Division are not yet sure how the changes will affect the state agency, which works closely with federal partners. 

“It’s pretty apparent that the details and individual impacts to a lot of programs are not worked out yet,” Pepin said. 

The biggest change appeared to be in Houghton, Pepin said. The facility houses the Northern Institute for Applied Climate Science, which Pepin said is relocating to Fort Collins, Colorado.

He said DNR and university officials in Michigan and other Great Lakes states “have worked closely” with the institute for many years assessing the climate vulnerability of forests, developing adaptation strategies and applying it to forest management.

It wasn’t clear whether layoffs would occur as part of the reorganization, but the administration’s announcement emphasized the reduction of “administrative duplication.”

“The Forest Service will provide employees and partners with detailed transition guidance as different milestones approach,” stated an agency release.

Agency spokespeople did not immediately respond to emailed questions from Bridge Michigan. 

Phone calls to Forest Service facilities in Houghton and Lansing were not answered. A person who picked up the phone in the Huron-Manistee National Forest, which includes the Wellston office, declined to comment. Bridge Michigan was unable to locate a phone number for the L’Anse facility.

While an agency press release described the move as a “structural reset and a common-sense approach to improve mission delivery,” some critics have described it as an effort to shrink the Forest Service and shift its mission away from protecting forests and toward logging and privatization.

Utah has been a frequent battleground for debates about public lands, from the fight over Bears Ears National Monument to a lawsuit by the state of Utah that aimed to take control of millions of acres of federal land and Utah Senator Mike Lee’s repeated efforts to sell off public land. 

“This reorganization will wreak havoc on the Forest Service management and organization, adding fuel to the unpopular narrative by officials like Senator Mike Lee that public lands should be sold off to private industry” said Josh Hicks, Conservation Campaigns Director at The Wilderness Society. “At a time when wildfires are getting worse, and access to public lands is already under strain, the last thing we need is an unnecessary reorganization.”

The post Trump administration plans closure of 4 Michigan forestry research centers appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

By Vivian La, IPR

This story is made possible through a partnership between Interlochen Public Radio and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

The company behind the controversial Line 5 tunnel project in the Straits of Mackinac released a report this month that lays out the potential geologic risks a contractor might see during construction — risks that pipeline opponents say underscore the dangers of the proposed tunnel.

Canadian pipeline company Enbridge Energy submitted its geotechnical baseline report on the project to state permitting agencies in early March. The report itself is from 2022. Enbridge says the report is based on data that was already available publicly.

The company wants to replace the existing dual-pipeline infrastructure in the Straits of Mackinac with a tunnel housing a new segment buried under the lakebed.

Opponents said they’re worried about potentially unsafe conditions indicated by the report, including weak bedrock, high water pressure and dangerous gases beneath the Straits.

“The report raises serious concerns about whether it is possible to safely build a tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac,” said Debbie Chizewer, managing attorney with the legal nonprofit Earthjustice, which is involved in litigation against Line 5.

Brian J. O’Mara, a geological engineer with the consultant group Agate Harbor Advisors LLC, said the report confirms his concerns around poor rock quality, suggesting that much of the bedrock won’t be stable for tunneling and could lead to the construction equipment failing.

The report also contains some redacted sentences in sections related to gas conditions and the possible “squeezing” of weak rock under high pressure.

“The report is silent on the risks related to fire, explosions, floods, sinkholes, tunnel collapse and a full-bore rupture release of oil and gas liquids from the pipeline,” O’Mara wrote in an email. He had written in legal filings to permitting agencies about his concerns on the report’s baseline data as early as 2023.

O’Mara notes that he believes the report incorrectly concludes that contractors won’t encounter any gas during tunneling.

Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said in an email that the geology beneath the Straits is not known to have gas, and that “the question has been thoroughly investigated by Enbridge and independent experts responding to Michigan regulators.”

“The reality is that the new pipeline replacement at the Straits crossing is designed specifically to prevent potential risks to the Great Lakes and its communities,” Duffy said.

Duffy said the “sole purpose” of the report was to inform and negotiate business deals with construction contractors. “Any geotechnical information pertinent to permitting decisions has already been made available to the relevant permitting agencies,” he said.

The report was not included in the case filings for Enbridge’s permit for the project issued by the Michigan Public Service Commission in 2023. The agency declined further comment because an appeal of the permit sits before the Michigan Supreme Court.

Enbridge is still waiting for permits from federal and other state agencies for the proposed project.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reviewed the geotechnical report when it developed the tunnel project’s Environmental Impact Statement, said agency spokesperson Brandon Hubbard.

A spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) said the agency requested the geotechnical report from Enbridge in late 2025 as part of their permitting process.

“We are continuing to evaluate the application that was submitted. We will include this document, along with many others posted to the EGLE database, as part of our review,” said EGLE spokesperson Scott Dean in an email.

A decision from EGLE on the permit is expected no later than mid-July.

Editor’s note: Enbridge is among IPR’s financial supporters. We cover them as we do any other company.

The post Line 5 opponents raise concerns over report on geologic conditions for proposed tunnel appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

In Milwaukee, every flush and drain leads to Kevin Shafer. As the executive director of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, he manages a system where extreme weather can force difficult choices between river releases and flooded basements. When a thousand-year storm overwhelmed the system in August 2025, Shafer faced an important decision. This story was made in partnership with the Points North Podcast at Interlochen Public Radio.

#GreatLakes #LakeMichigan #Flood #Weather #Rain #Infrastructure

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END CREDITS:
“Where do you put a thousand-year flood?” was produced by Great Lakes Now/Detroit PBS in partnership with Interlochen Public Radio.

Produced and Written by
Dan Wanschura
Rob Green

Narrated by
Dan Wanschura

Edited by
Jordan Wingrove

Camera
Dusan Harminc
Nick Loud

Additional Material
Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District
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Nicki Cheever
4Jay Films
Corey Hafemeister
Barbara Jayne
Dawn Perry
Troy Vosseller
U.S. National Archives
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Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The post Where do you put a thousand-year flood? appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

On Earth Day, we’re diving beneath the surface of Lake Huron to explore the hidden world living next to a nuclear power plant.

Join us for a LIVE exploration of the water surrounding Bruce Power, one of the largest nuclear facilities in the world. Experts will be on-hand to answer your questions in real-time.

Join us at Fish City on April 22nd at 10am! Learn more at GreatLakesNow.org/HiddenBelow

Presented by @InspiredPlanet-x6r, Great Lakes Now, and @detroitpbs with support from the Nature Conservancy of Canada

#GreatLakes #Water #Fish #Ecology #NuclearPower #Environment #Underwater #Livestream

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The post We’re going to Fish City! | Hidden Below: Live appeared first on Great Lakes Now.