Michigan midwives deliver hundreds of babies a year at home, an option that may be more attractive to rural expectant mothers with no hospitals nearby
Rural Michigan
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
A slow-moving ‘disaster’ is threatening Lake Superior and way of life
The Buffalo Reef in the Keweenaw Peninsula teems with lake trout and whitefish. But a mountain of waste from a closed mine is slowly seeping into the water, prompting a desperate search for a solution.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Mining waste and growing wetlands mean more mercury in fish in Upper Peninsula
A Michigan Tech researcher says studies show humans are at risk because of high levels of the toxic metal in inland Great Lakes fish.
Posted inTalent & Education
Yes, you can pay rural Michigan college grads to come home
Tired of seeing their best and brightest head to college never to return, three Michigan counties offer to pay up to $15,000 of student debt for grads who come back for jobs. Counties in other states are taking notice.
Posted inTalent & Education
Rural Michigan begs for workers. A few companies are getting creative.
With more than 100,000 unfilled jobs statewide, rural manufacturers often lose out in the scramble for skilled trade workers. Can added lures like company daycare, health clinics or cash bonuses turn the tide?
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
With few friends on Great Lakes, chorus grows for cormorant kills
As fish numbers drop in Michigan’s northern waters, efforts to limit the birds have ranged from raccoon squads to slicking their eggs with oil. Now the big guns are getting involved. (with slideshow)
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Floods test mettle in Michigan’s UP. Waiting for relief tests patience.
Yoopers are doing it themselves, digging out after the worst flooding in more than a generation. But money is running out, and folks are getting tired of waiting for emergency relief assistance.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, epic floods reveal stormwater woes
Officials in Copper Country are rushing to unclog culverts before the next round of heavy rain or melting snow again swamps homes. Some residents are calling for more dramatic action to reshape dangerous drainage systems dating back to mining boom days.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Slideshow | Michigan’s Upper Peninsula picks up pieces after epic floods
View photos as Copper Country recovers from this summer’s floods
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Hancock nonprofit plays outsized role in Upper Peninsula flood recovery
Few Yoopers will get insurance payouts after the floods, and homeowners have yet to get federal aid. Nearly 500 have applied for a Portage Health Foundation program to fill in those gaps.