Great Lakes Blogger

protecting chemical companies from babies

Is this the path to the vice presidential nomination?

Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a strong backer of presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain, vetoed Monday a bill that would protect children from toxic substances in baby toys and also ban a highly toxic flame retardant. His veto message was packed with inaccuracies handed him by chemical companies and other special interests. (Veto message here.Download ch_301_veto_message.pdf   Text of vetoed bill here Download final_bill.pdf.)

It would take an encyclopedia to record and explain them all. There is strong scientific and public health policy support for banning phthalates and deca-PBDE, despite the governor's errant claims. There are also safe alternative toys for infants.

Most disturbingly, he cited "sound science" as the basis for his action. Anyone familiar with the misuse of the term by the incumbent President and his administration will shudder. Sound science in this definition is science paid for by regulated industries.

With a week to go in the legislative session, there is a ray of hope:

Lawmakers may have the votes to send a vetoed plastics ban back to Gov. Tim Pawlenty, but it's unclear whether they will make an attempt this session.

More than two-thirds of the lawmakers in the House and Senate voted earlier this month to ban phthalates from children's products such as rubber duckies, vinyl bibs, and teething rings. A local environmental coalition urged the ban against the plastics chemical, citing research about infertility and child development problems.

A letter from Pawlenty on Monday night said he vetoed the ban because it "overreaches and goes beyond current scientific research" about the risks. The bill also sought to ban a flame-retardant material that may be toxic, and Pawlenty offered the same concerns that the risks were exaggerated.

politics, courts and Great Lakes

An excellent new report helps document how contributions and expensive campaigns are turning the judiciary of some Great Lakes states into the last refuge of corporate scofflaws. Anyone who thinks state courts don't have much to do with environmental protection should just refer to the July 2007 Michigan Supreme Court ruling (by a 4-3 margin) nullifying a key provision of the 1970 Michigan Environmental Protection Act. The essence of the ruling was that a law saying 'any' citizen could sue to protect the environment really meant only some citizens could sue. This ruling pleased polluters who have disliked MEPA since it was passed. Interestingly, a member of the Michigan Supreme Court majority, Cliff Taylor, is up for re-election this year. 'Independent' expenditures on his behalf are likely to total in the millions. They won't come from advocates of strong conservation and environmental laws.

compact and Michigan

Something is "about to pop," but whether it's real water conservation or all symbolism has yet to be decided.

As Birkholz and Warren seek a balance that protects Michigan water while capitalizing on the economic potential of its abundance, the clock is ticking. There's a sense that the Great Lakes states and provinces should waste no time approving a compact that protects the lakes from dry states and regions that covet their water.

There's already been a delay. Michigan is one of the last of the eight Great Lakes states to take up the compact. Even more importantly, there is no contradiction between 'protecting Michigan water' and 'capitalizing on the economic potential of its abundance.' You won't have water to fulfill your economic potential if you waste it now -- the courts and Congress will see to that. Water conservation is key to Michigan and the other states 'capitalizing' on Great Lakes water.

stick to sports, Frank

This column about climate change in the Friday Detroit News by Frank Beckmann (best known for his broadcasts of U-Mich football games) should be sacked in the end zone for a safety.

It sets forth invective, ignorance and illusion in a disoriented arrangement like a gridiron with random stripes.

For example:

Bad news for the alarmists promoting the myth of manmade climate change. Even their most ardent political sponsors are bailing out on an important issue, highlighting the hypocrisy of the crowd led by former Vice President Al Gore.

He alludes to new concerns being raised about the wisdom of ethanol as an answer to global warming, particularly in light of rising food prices. Apparently he's unaware that large agribusiness conglomerates, not advocates of climate protection, have been the primary force behind the rise of ethanol production. The 'alarmists' he's so concerned about have been warning us for at least three or four years that corn-based ethanol makes no sense for our economy or environment.

Then:

What we have learned from scientific observation -- not computer model guesses -- is that temperatures on earth have been cooling since 1998, Arctic sea ice is growing, the Antarctic summer thaw began later because of cold temperatures and a report in Nature projects that cooler ocean currents are going to cause at least a decade of colder weather. This has come on the heels of two straight mild hurricane seasons.

Need a reminder be necessary, we just completed a particularly harsh winter in the United States and Canada that included Michigan's deepest snowfall in 50 years, despite a continuing rise in emissions of carbon dioxide.

Uh, yeah. A harsh winter in the U.S., and a warmer than average March globally. As Ralph Maughan says in his post (which links to Science Daily):

I am posting this news because the winter of 2007-8 has been colder than normal in the United States, and once again some people are confusing the weather with climate, and in an irritatingly parochial way confusing the United States with the world.

Low temperatures and heavy snow in the United States and Europe were more than offset by high temperatures in Asia. The area of snow coverage in North America and Europe was the most extensive on record. Nevertheless, warm temperatures in March in Europe led to rapid snow melt. In Europe snow coverage for March was the lowest on record — the change was extreme.

There are more inaccuracies in Beckmann's writeup, but let's leave it there for now.

20 years since mussel's invasion noticed

...and still, as the Detroit Free Press says, we have seen no effective action by our governments.

"You can't recover the lakes of a generation ago. They're gone forever."

That may be the truest -- and cruelest -- elegy delivered as the Great Lakes mark the 20th anniversary of the discovery of zebra mussels on June 1, 1988, in Lake St. Clair. It comes from Carol Stepien, a University of Toledo researcher who studies gobies -- another notorious invader -- and who has found at least 18 more goby varieties in Europe that would probably love to call the Great Lakes home.

Freshwater species that originated in tributaries around the Black and Caspian Seas seem to adore the Great Lakes, and various Eurasian species had been showing up since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to foreign ships in 1959. But most were microscopic plants and animals.

Zebra mussels showed how readily a bigger invader could not just survive, but thrive, threatening to wipe out some native species and alter the food web so drastically that even big lake fish no longer had enough food. It was not the first, it may not even be the worst, but it surely is the poster child for a problem that no one has yet had the will to address.

photographic testimony

Cliffs over Lake Superior.

Beach at Pinery Provincial Park.

no sunshine on Wisconsin compact deal

According to Jim Rowen, it is unlikely outsiders (some call them by the quaint term 'citizens') will get a hearing to look at and comment upon whatever final language is crafted by Wisconsin legislators on a pending compromise over Great Lakes compact ratification. That's not good news; there's a reason why these deals are cut in the dark -- they're often ugly policy.

Here's what they may be trying to hide:

Approving the pending Great Lakes Compact is a good thing, but central to the amendments, as I have reported previously, is the addition to SB 523 of language designed to lower potential barriers to approvals of diversions of Lake Michigan water to certain Wisconsin communities- - lowered and eased until the final ratification of the Compact by all the eight Great Lakes states, and the US Congress.

This is the crucial, so-called interim period that could last for years, as only half the eight Great States have approved the Compact since its drafting was completed three-and-a-half years ago.

what's in your water?

Chicago's first tests for pharmaceutical drugs in Lake Michigan drinking water detected trace amounts of unregulated chemicals, though officials said the levels were extremely low and posed no health risks.

Responding to a Tribune story published last month that for the first time revealed small amounts of pharmaceuticals and other unregulated chemicals in local tap water, the city's water commissioner said Chicago will conduct its own tests once a month for at least the next year.

The only compound found in both the Tribune and city tests was cotinine, a nicotine byproduct that researchers consider to be an indicator of pharmaceuticals from human waste.

The city also found small amounts of gemfibrozil, a prescription cholesterol-fighting drug, in water from the Jardine plant, which serves neighborhoods north of 35th Street. The active ingredient in bug spray, DEET, was found in water from the South Side Treatment Plant at 78th Street.

Moreover, the city found nicotine and carbamazepine, a prescription anti-seizure drug, in untreated water on the South Side. The compounds were not found in treated water, though .

a top Great Lakes journalist's new blog

Lost in the hubbub over other Great Lakes news was the debut of a blog by Jeff Alexander of the Muskegon Chronicle. He's not only the author of an award-winning book about the Muskegon River but also one of a half dozen print journalists in the Great Lakes Basin who disinfects government and corporate PR with the blinding light of facts. Sometimes he makes environmental advocates quite uncomfortable as well. His new blog and future books are worth savoring.

But Jeff, you've got to post more frequently!

probe EPA politicization

Thanks, Muskegon Chronicle.

The ouster of Mary Gade, who headed the EPA's Midwest regional office in Chicago, doesn't pass the proverbial smell test. It is a move so questionable, and so possibly tainted by politics, that it ought to be looked into by Congress, as we see it.