Michigan environment roundup: Don’t feed the zombie deer

Bridge Magazine is committed to sharing the best environmental journalism in and around Michigan, an effort called #EnviroReads.

In Bridge’s Michigan Environment Watch, we share a roundup of recent stories on the Great Lakes or other issues. If you see a story we should include next time, use the hashtag #EnviroReads on Twitter or email Environmental Reporter Jim Malewitz at jmalewitz@bridgemi.com.

DNR : Ban deer feeding, baiting to combat 'zombie deer' disease

Detroit Free Press

“The practice of deer hunters using food piles as bait to lure deer, or any other kind of deer-feeding, should be banned across all of the Lower Peninsula to help stop the alarming spread of chronic wasting disease in wild deer, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources is recommending,” Keith Matheny reports. “Other recommendations include banning non-synthetic deer urine-based lures and scents in hunting, as the disease is spread by a deer's bodily fluids, and expanding a more heavily scrutinized management zone for the disease from five counties and some surrounding townships to 13 counties.”

Neighbors to Grand Rapids Superfund site start cancer investigation

MLive

“For Pamela Anderson, 56, growing up on Indiana Avenue in Grand Rapids meant the nearby 180-acre Butterworth dump was a place to find a free bike or party by the river. Now, the years she spent living next to the landfill -- classified as a Superfund site in 1992 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Association due to its severe contamination -- has Anderson and her former neighbors worried,” Amy Biolchini reports. “Residents past and present are starting their own query into rates of cancer in the Indiana Avenue neighborhood between Butterworth and Wealthy on the city's West Side.”

(Minnesota) DNR celebrating success of long-range program to restore trout to Lake Superior

Star Tribune

“As another summer begins in Minnesota, North Shore fishing villages, local charter boat captains and individual anglers willing to launch into the oftentimes sudden-changing waters of Gitche Gumee are enjoying a lake trout revival of epic proportions,” Tony Kennedy reports. “The turnaround — 50 years in the making — was capped less than a year ago when the Department of Natural Resources fully reopened the native species to commercial fishing.”

Researchers trap Grand River lamprey with sex pheromones

MLive

“With the help of sex pheromones, researchers will soon have an estimate of how many bloodsucking sea lamprey use the Grand River as spawning grounds. It's the first sea lamprey population study on the Grand River in nearly 40 years, according to federal researchers,” Michael Kransz reports. “The findings, part of ongoing efforts to bring the rapids back to the Grand River, will be presented in late June.”

DEQ nears approval of expansion at hazardous waste facility in Detroit

Detroit Free Press

“A controversial proposal for a nearly ninefold expansion of storage capacity at a hazardous waste processing facility in Detroit appears nearing approval by state environmental regulators,” Keith Matheny reports. “US Ecology's facility at 6520 Georgia St., just north of I-94 near the Hamtramck border, is permitted to process up to 144,000 gallons of hazardous wastes per day — more than 4,500 tons of toxic chemicals and metals from industry, including PCBs, mercury, arsenic and more.”