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Great Lakes
Quick Hit
by Josh Kalven
10:47am
Wed Jul 28, 2010

Another Oil Spill, This One Closer To Home

In case you missed the disturbing news, an oil pipeline in Marshall, MI (see it on a map) sprung a leak on Monday morning and has since dumped more than 800,000 gallons of oil into a creek that feeds into the Kalamazoo River. A local congressman is calling it the "largest oil spill in the history of the Midwest." If uncontained, the oil would eventually reach Lake Michigan, but state officials say they don't expect that to happen (which, frankly, isn't all that encouraging).

Illinois-based environmentalists are rightly calling foul. "How many oil spills, decimated ecosystems, and broken communities will we endure before we understand the true cost of carbon?" asked Illinois' own Rep. Mike Quigley in a statement today. Joel Brammeier of the Alliance for the Great Lakes wrote yesterday: "[A]s today’s event in west Michigan shows, this is no time to relax our vigilance on fossil fuel development."  And on their Twitter account this morning, the Illinois Sierra Club pointed out that the Canadian company that owns the pipeline in question reported $232 million in earnings in the second quarter of this year.

Hopefully, much of those profits will be used to pay for the ongoing cleanup. 

Quick Hit
by Adam Doster
10:56am
Tue Apr 27, 2010

The Next Step For Great Lakes Stewards

Midwestern environmentalists worried about Asian carp were dealt another setback yesterday in their legal effort to force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to sever the connection between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin. But all is not lost. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Dan Egan, who has provided first-rate coverage of the Asian carp debate over the past year, reminds readers today that the Corps is already planning to study the viability of ecological separation and will release the results in two years. Meanwhile, a strong contingent of lawmakers and activists still support more comprehensive measures than Illinois officials or the Obama administration have proposed:

[T]he pressure to explore a permanent separation on the canal system isn't likely going away. It has the backing of a coalition of Great Lakes states attorneys general, a broad bipartisan coalition of federal lawmakers and state legislators from across the region.

"This does not mean that the dispute over Asian carp is over," said Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen. "We will review our options and work with the other Great Lake states concerned about this problem. We will do what we believe is necessary to protect the Great Lakes."