(MI) Grand Rapids Press – When Ron Myszak’s four fishing buddies came to his home on Myers Lake for the start of bass season Saturday, he hoped for pristine boating and angling conditions.

(MI) Booth Newspapers – The federal government will speed up a long-delayed assessment of how dioxins affect human health, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.

(MI) The Saginaw News – A crew spreads clean dirt onto the grounds of West Michigan Park on W. Michigan Ave. in Saginaw Township. Crews removed a layer of dioxin-polluted soil and is replacing it with clean fill as part of The West Michigan Park Soil Removal Project.

(MI) Ann Arbor News – Critics charge that modifications to Pall Life Sciences’ long-running groundwater cleanup plan could endanger Ann Arbor’s drinking water.

By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 19, 2009
In the alphabet soup of Great Lakes contaminants, PCBs, PCDDs and PBDEs usually rule the broth.
But in a recent study, Canadian scientists took a closer look at another noodle.
They examined a group of seldom-studied, dioxin-like contaminants called polychlorinated naphthalenes, or PCNs. These chemicals can have toxic effects including chloracne and liver damage.
And although industry abandoned their use 30 years ago, the researchers still found the chemicals in lake trout collected from Lake Ontario from 1979 and 2004.

Even though only 1 percent of toys contain mercury, Mike Shriberg says that’s too much of the dangerous element in the hands of vulnerable children.
“You’re still talking about millions of products out there,” said Shribert, a children’s health advocate.
The Michigan Network for Children’s Environmental Health, where Shriberg directs policy, is pushing a package of bills in the Michigan Legislature to tighten restrictions on mercury-containing products, including toys.
The bills passed the house last week and were sent to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs.
Michigan and Pennsylvania are the …

Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
April 23, 2009

The largest, deepest and coldest Great Lake holds another distinction, – it has the highest levels of toxaphene found in the region and possibly anywhere in the world.
Since federal bans on persistent pollutants in the 1970s and 80s, most chemical concentrations have declined in the Great Lakes.
Some Great Lakes toxicologists say the same is true of toxaphene.

Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo 4/21/09

As contaminated sediment is cleaned up in the Great Lakes, persistent pollutants continue to blow in, threatening again to poison soil and harm human health.
That has some experts questioning if it’s worthwhile to spend money to remove toxic sediments if they will once more become contaminated in a matter of years.

Millions of dollars have been spent cleaning historic Great Lakes contamination. Millions more are sought. Does it make sense to clean the lakes before the pollution sources are eliminated?
A look at toxic fallout.

By Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo

Ohio, New York and Illinois are among a dozen states just awarded funds from the federal Department of Energy for environmental clean up.
The three Great Lakes states along with nine others are getting $6 billion in new funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The investment is expected to create thousands of jobs, federal officials announced Tuesday.