MEC and our partners at the Michigan League of Conservation Voters released a report Thursday showing that deep budget cuts proposed in Lansing and Washington put at risk essential programs for protecting the Great Lakes, ensuring safe drinking water and cleaning up toxic contamination.

With Memorial Day fast approaching, many Michiganders are preparing to re-open cottages on the state's more than 11,000 inland lakes. If you're lucky enough to have a summer place on the water or live lakeside year-round, the way you landscape and manage your property can have a big impact on water quality and lake-dwelling wildlife.

MEC is proud to announce that Tina Reynolds, our health policy director, has been appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to serve on a new Child Lead Exposure Elimination Commission. Snyder signed an executive order creating the commission on Thursday and said it will be a permanent body.

MEC and allies have argued for more than two years that commercial fish farms have no place in our Great Lakes. This week, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette agreed.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality last week delayed its expected decision on a permit for the Back Forty Project, an open-pit gold, zinc and copper mine proposed for the western Upper Peninsula. Back in September, the agency indicated in a preliminary decision its intent to approve the request from Aquila Resources, opening a final window for the public to weigh in before the final decision set for Dec. 1. The deadline for that final decision has now been pushed back to Dec. 29.

Editor's note: The following guest post was written by Stanley "Skip" Pruss and originally ran on the blog of 5 Lakes Energy, where he is principal and co-founder. It is re-posted here with permission.

Editor's note: This post is by MEC intern Matthew McLaughlin

We've been getting calls in our office lately from people concerned about the Flint water crisis-folks from as far away as West Virginia and New Mexico-who want to know what they can do to help.

Today was a big day in the ongoing effort to protect our fisheries and fresh water by keeping factory fish farming out of the Great Lakes.

In what has become a national news story and a full-fledged public health emergency, state officials now acknowledge that unsafe drinking water has exposed children, pregnant women and other Flint residents to dangerous levels of lead.