(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - The most expensive construction project in state history, We Energies’ new $2.3 billion coal-fired plant in Oak Creek, has begun generating power, having reached several construction milestones in recent months, the company’s chairman said Thursday.

(MI) The Saginaw News – Lake freighters have lightened loads for years to snake through the Saginaw River to drop off cargo. 

(MI) The Daily Mining Gazette - Last week, Gov. Jennifer Granholm issued an executive order creating the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment, effective Jan. 17, 2010.

By Haley Marie Walker
Oct. 30, 2009
Jim Luby is a fruit forensics investigator.
The University of Minnesota horticulture professor is among 29 researchers on a project using genetics to create fruit with characteristics consumers want.
“It is similar to human forensics,” Luby said. “The way we are able to relate differences in DNA from one individual to another, we will now do with differences in traits of fruit.”
The project, called RosBREED, targets five fruits in the Rosaceae plant family: strawberries, apples, peaches and sweet and tart cherries.
Researchers will survey consumers for their preferences …

(MI) The Escanaba Daily Press - Proposals to buy Escanaba’s power plant and offers to sell energy to the city are under the microscope as city representatives looked deeper into details Wednesday.

(NY) The Wall Street Journal - Thirteen Great Lakes steamships would be exempted from tougher federal air-quality standards under a provision tacked on to a government spending bill by a leading Democratic lawmaker, a move that has prompted protests from environmentalists.

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune - Minnesota’s first copper mine took a step forward Wednesday as state officials released a 1,500-page environmental impact study for the Iron Range proposal. The $600 million project, to be built by PolyMet Mining Inc., would include an open-pit mine near Babbitt and a processing plant near Hoyt Lakes, connected by an existing 6-mile railroad spur.

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune - Research happens up close in the world’s longest continuous study of predators and prey at Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. Peterson has been watching and counting moose and wolves in this wilderness off Minnesota’s North Shore for nearly 40 of the study’s 51 years, in summer by foot and in winter by air.

(OH) Cleveland Plain Dealer - New proposed regulations for oil and gas drilling don’t do enough to shield the health and property rights of people in residential neighborhoods, a group of Northeast Ohio residents told lawmakers Wednesday.

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune - After years of tilling away in obscurity, Will Allen has found sudden fame as the face of the urban farming movement.