Lexi Krupp

On the ballot this election is a proposal to change how Michigan spends the money it gets from oil and gas production.

Right now the state uses oil and gas dollars to buy and maintain public lands, and for nothing else.

Under Proposal 1 this program would continue in perpetuity.

A popular Senator named Philip Hart had a dream to create a national park in the dunes of northern Michigan. But when he proposed the plan in 1961, it came as a shock to the people of Sleeping Bear Dunes. 

Sleeping Bear Dunes turns 50 this month. It’s a destination that brings well over a million visitors to the dunes along Lake Michigan every year. 

Normally, the waters of Lake Michigan sit around 580 feet. 

This week, hear how high water in the Great Lakes is unearthing Native American burial sites. In some places along Lake Michigan, human remains have been discovered at the beach.

Also, more water isn’t the only reason the lakes are higher, a higher elevation that is. The Great Lakes are still rebounding from the last ice age.

And what’s in those holes in your garden?

Mike Smith spent most of his career as a diver with the Detroit Police Department recovering cars, guns, and sometimes bodies from the city’s murky rivers. 

In some inland lakes invasive plants grow so thick, motor boats get stuck and you can’t fish or swim. 

The nationwide shutdown was especially ill-timed for fishers in the Great Lakes.

This week we look into why commercial fishers in the Great Lakes have been left out of federal aid for fisheries nationwide, to the tune of $300 million. (The Great Lakes got zero.)

When a wolf from an island near Ontario was brought to Isle Royale two years ago, she was likely pregnant and hungry.

Maria San Miguel was nervous about getting a coronavirus test. 

“I was seeing on the television and the internet that there was something they were going to put up your nose really far,” she says in Spanish. 

Supporters of the Line 5 tunnel project showed up in full force at a state agency hearing this week. 

Back in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Suzanne Wagner realized that social distancing requirements had created an unlikely linguistic experiment. 

Coyotes are now commonplace across Michigan, from the suburbs to pristine hardwood forests. Their success is thanks to a dearth of other predators, like gray wolves, in most of the state and the adaptability of coyotes themselves.  

A Michigan judge granted four tribes the right to participate in Enbridge’s Line 5 permitting process last week. The Canadian energy company is looking to relocate and build a tunnel to house its pipeline at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac. 

A network of fast-charging stations for electric vehicles is coming to northern Michigan over the next year, thanks to $1.7 million in grants from the state.

The ferry dock at North Manitou Island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, is in need of repairs from constant dredging. The park is strapped for millions to fix up buildings at its historic farm and village properties and rebuild an overlook on the park’s Scenic Drive. For years, the park hasn’t had the money to fix aging infrastructure.

If you took a dip in Lake Michigan in early July you might have noticed the water felt pretty nice.