Scientists and environmental activists say they’re hopeful recent floodwaters didn’t undo years of work to clean up dioxin contamination in the Tittabawassee River, but they’re awaiting sampling results to know for sure.
Kelly House
Kelly House covers Michigan's environment for Bridge Michigan, with a focus on the Great Lakes, climate change, industrial pollution, water quality and wildlife. She joined Bridge in March 2020 after reporting for the Oregonian, where her coverage earned national honors and sparked efforts to better protect Oregon's natural resources. Kelly holds a master's degree in environmental law from Lewis & Clark Law School and a bachelor's in journalism from Michigan State University.
Kelly grew up in Harrison and is based in Lansing.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Insomnia, flashbacks hitting Michigan hospital workers as coronavirus ebbs
Burnout and suicide rates were already high among health care workers. Now, hospital systems and mental health providers are responding to trauma caused by the intensity of responding to COVID-19.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Line 5 tunnel’s future could hinge on a few words in 2018 law, court learns
The Michigan Court of Appeals to decide whether a law that paved the way for a planned tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac is constitutional, since words in its title didn’t match the text of the law.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
How weak regulations failed to prevent catastrophe at notorious Midland dam
Regulators warned for 25 years that mid-Michigan dams were dangerous, yet their problems persisted. Dam safety experts say the failure to fix the dams is emblematic of the country’s broken regulatory system.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Two heirs bought Midland dams as a tax shelter. Tragedy followed.
Heirs to the fortune of the Boy Scouts founder — an architect and a bagpiper — purchased the Edenville Dam as an investment to avoid taxes, records show. For 14 years, the family trust clashed with government officials on taxes, regulations, fishing and other issues. Then came the rains.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
See Dow Chemical ponds, dioxin cleanup site after Michigan flooding
Aerial views of flood waters in and around Midland underscore the environmental challenges facing the region following dam breaks and historic flooding this week.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Dana Nessel and Enbridge argue Line 5 pipeline shutdown to Michigan judge
In arguments to an Ingham County judge, lawyers for the attorney general say the pipeline easement below the Straits of Mackinac should never have been granted. Enbridge says the question was settled decades ago by the Legislature.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Michigan regulators moved fast on dangerous dam. To protect mussels.
In court papers, the owners of a dam that failed this week near Midland acknowledged it was considered unsafe for decades. But Michigan’s only action against the dam was a suit contending it lowered water and killed freshwater mussels.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
As floodwaters bear down on Dow Chemical, worries about water toxins
Dow Chemical evacuates its Midland headquarters as dam breaches bring flooding to the complex’s containment ponds.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Feds revoked dam’s license over safety issues. Then Michigan deemed it safe.
For a decade, safety regulators demanded improvements to a 95-year-old dam that failed this week. The repairs never came, and Michigan regulators deemed the dam in “fair condition.” One critic calls it a “catastrophic failure both of the dam and of our government at all levels.”