Living in a Detroit neighborhood devastated by vacant lots and abandoned eyesores, my chief dilemma is the same one shared by my neighbors: Do I leave the city I love, or do I stay?

Across the state, we've been giving presentations on the 25% by 2025 proposal, and fielding good questions. Here are the top 12 questions answered.

MEC Development Director Andy Draheim's recent letter to his friends and family encapsulated his reasons for supporting Proposal 3, the 25x25 renewable energy standard on Michigan's ballot. We provide it here as an educational and outreach tool to YOUR friends and family who are interested in cutting through the confusing fog of television advertising and overwrought hyperbole.

The Michigan Environmental Council today applauded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision to cut in half the reference value for lead in children’s blood. There is no safe level of lead, and the CDC action is a step in the right direction.

“The Michigan Environmental Council applauds Consumers Energy on its announcement to not move forward with a new coal-fired power plant, and its decision to retire seven smaller units around the state,” said James Clift, policy director of the Michigan Environmental Council. “These decisions are good news for public health in Michigan.”

New campaign will make Michigan a healthy place for kids to grow and thrive.

Lowering the cost of doing business in Michigan to grow our state’s economy has been a huge priority in Lansing this year. That focus has been almost entirely centered on taxes, including a $1.7 billion business tax cut by 2013. There is an overlooked cost center with more money-saving potential than tax cuts and far greater benefits for Michigan businesses and residents: energy costs. The amount Michiganders pay for energy rivals that of taxes, yet it has not been in the current administration’s sight lines.

A Michigan Environmental Council report that drew more than 120 legislators and policymakers to a State Capitol briefing in June shows the state’s oldest coal-fired electricity plants cost Michiganders $1.5 billion annually in health care expenses. “Public Health Impacts of Old Coal-Fired Power Plants in Michigan” examines pollution from small particulate matter – the main component in soot.

The Michigan Environmental Council called on the State Legislature to provide greater oversight of Michigan utilities today following the release of a report showing that the state’s oldest coal-fired electricity plants cost Michiganders $1.5 billion annually in health care costs.

This report quantifies the economic burden and health toll that the state’s oldest coal-fired power plants create. It examines pollution from small particulate matter – the main component in smog. The report found that the state’s nine oldest coal plants cost a family of four an average of over $500 per year in expenses and damages associated with increased hospital admissions, premature deaths and treatments for asthma, respiratory ailments, and cardiovascular problems, among others. The study also estimated national impacts of Michigan’s old coal power plants, finding that they are responsible for $5.4 billion in health care costs – mostly in the Great Lakes region where much of the pollution falls out. Those plants began operation between 1949 and 1968 and are among the most polluting and least efficient in the state.

Michigan parents would have new tools to help keep their kids safe from toxic chemicals in toys under legislation expected soon in the State Senate. The bill would require large toy manufacturers and importers to disclose their use of hazardous chemicals in children's products.

A new initiative by MEC member group LocalMotionGreen aims to reduce the use of toxic pesticides on lawns and gardens in Grosse Pointe and all of Southeast Michigan.

The Vision outlines goals – and intermediate steps – to get Michigan to a year 2060 where energy needs are met cleanly and affordably; thriving centers of commerce prosper in harmony with our Great Lakes and other natural assets; and people thrive in dynamic neighborhoods that have easy access to efficient transportation options, healthy local food and cultural amenities.

Politics and constant transition in Detroit’s leadership this year has frustrated Detroiters working to establish cleaner, cheaper alternatives to the Detroit incinerator for disposal of the city’s garbage. But MEC Community Outreach Director Sandra Turner-Handy has been at the forefront of the effort, meeting with mayoral staffers and key allies in Detroit in an effort to keep the politics of confusion from undermining good policy decisions.

A blueprint for a cleaner, healthier, cheaper way of handling Detroit’s waste is being considered by Detroit Mayor Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. in the wake of the city’s decision to stop burning garbage at the expensive, polluting Detroit incinerator.

A Congressional Committee chaired by Michigan Congressman John Dingell finalized the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act to include provisions to set first-ever national standards on lead in toys and ban the plasticizer phthalates from children’s toys and childcare articles.

In each issue of the Michigan Environmental Report, we celebrate accomplishments by MEC and member groups.

The Michigan Environmental Council supported member group Ecology Center in defending itself from a frivolous lawsuit filed by Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals. The company’s suit was designed, in MEC’s opinion, to thwart efforts by the Center and others, including MEC, from pursuing legislation to restrict the dangerous chemical’s use on children.

The Greater Grand Rapids Children’s Environmental Health Initiative recently earned recognition from federal agencies as one of four national models of community collaboration projects.

Artificial Christmas trees are not the only holiday decoration containing lead—a potent neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to the developing brains and bodies of young children.

Michigan’s only oil refinery wants to get bigger, potentially adding to air pollution in a southwest Detroit neighborhood that already is bordered by two expressways, a steel mill, a salt mine, and dozens of other heavy-duty industrial facilities.

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