By ANDREW ROTHCapital News Service LANSING – Michigan could restore laws requiring polluters to pay for cleanup of contaminated land and water amid a flurry of efforts by the Legislature’s new Democratic majority to roll back decades of Republican policies. “I would very much expect that,” said Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, the majority whip. […]
Posted inUncategorized
What you need to know this week – 2/3/23
Shutoff leader: A watchdog group called DTE Energy one of the country’s “most aggressively anti-consumer utility companies” after it cut off power to more than 128,800 customers in the first ten months of 2022, a 16% increase over the same period in 2021. During the same period, Michigan’s largest utility spent $2.1 billion paying dividends to shareholders, […]
Posted inCommunity
Planet Detroit welcomes community journalists to inaugural ‘Reporting from Where We Live’ class
Planet Detroit is thrilled to announce the selection of five outstanding individuals in our first-ever class designed to equip local residents with community reporting skills. We’re partnering with Cleveland’s The Land on this special opportunity to join their “Reporting from Where We Live” class which trains local residents who want to write about their neighborhoods, local government, […]
Posted inAccountability
Southwest residents seek answers about Moroun-owned truck yard
A residential-zoned parcel has been leveled and fenced off, violating city ordinance. Residents are worried about more trucking coming to their neighborhood. Southwest Detroit residents convened last week at Donovan’s Pub seeking answers about recent activity at a property belonging to the Moroun-owned real estate company Crown Enterprises at Toledo and 25th Street. “We’re desperate,” […]
Posted inVoices
OPINION: The EV transition isn’t just about cars – the broader goal should be access to clean mobility for everyone
Sita M. Syal, University of Michigan The race to decarbonize passenger cars and light-duty trucks in the U.S. is accelerating. Battery electric vehicles accounted for almost 6% of all new vehicle sales in 2022, up from close to 3% in 2021, and demand is outstripping supply, even as manufacturers roll out new models and designs. […]
Posted inCommunity
In search of greenspace equity: A short history of Detroit’s parks
“It is one great purpose of the Park to supply to the hundreds of thousands of tired workers, who have no opportunity to spend their summers in the country, a specimen of God’s handiwork that shall be to them, inexpensively, what a month or two in the White Mountains or the Adirondacks is, at great […]
Posted inVoices
OPINION: New report on Detroit and Rouge River’s contaminated sediments urges creative financing, environmental justice
The window for leveraging federal funds to clean up the Detroit River ends in 4-5 years. Advocates call for urgency and new approaches. Contaminated sediments on the U.S. side of the Detroit River and in the lower Rouge River continue to limit the ecological recovery of these ecosystems, including making fish unsafe for human consumption […]
Posted inGuides
DTE’s new Time of Day rate will be here in March. Here’s what you need to know.
Starting in March, DTE will implement a new rate structure that charges more for electricity from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays relative to the other 20 hours of the day and all day on weekends.
Posted inVoices
OPINION: The origin of the water affordability crisis in Highland Park
Republished with permission from Detroit Urbanism. The City of Highland Park once operated its own independent municipal water supply, from June 1915 through December 2012. Toward the end of that period, while the city was under emergency state financial oversight, inspections had found that the facility had suffered from years of deferred maintenance and was therefore “temporarily” shut […]
Posted inUncategorized
What you need to know this week – 1/27/23
The Gov’s words: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued her State of State address Wednesday, calling to “increase domestic clean energy production, like wind and solar, so we can produce more energy in America instead of overseas,” and adding that “we must pursue climate action while creating jobs, lowering costs, and becoming a hub of clean energy […]