Tell your Michigan senator not to approve oil industry executive Heidi Grether as the Director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality!

Increased Asthma Attacks Tied to Exposure to Natural Gas Production

Wednesday, July 20, 2016 By Lisa Song and Nicholas Kusnetz, InsideClimate News | Report 

• Exposure to more intense shale gas development correlates with a higher risk of asthma attacks among asthma patients, according to a new study of Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale, one of the nation's largest and most active fracking regions.

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SIERRA CLUB MICHIGAN CHAPTER CELEBRATES 50 YEARS IN 2017 - MI Chapter Update, 7-17-16

Snyder taps ex-BP official to run DEQ

Chad Livengood and Jim Lynch, The Detroit News11:22 a.m. EDT July 14, 2016

(Photo: Handout photo)

Lansing — Gov. Rick Snyder on Thursday appointed a former BP America official who managed public relations in the company’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill to run his troubled Department of Environmental Quality.

Heidi Grether of Williamston will replace interim DEQ Director Keith Creagh on Aug. 1. Creagh will return to the Department of Natural Resources as director, according to the governor’s office.

“Heidi has decades of experience in environmental quality issues, and has effectively served during times of crises and recovery,” Snyder said in a statement.

Grether was a registered lobbyist for BP America in Lansing from 1993 to 2008, state records show.

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How Canada’s pipeline watchdog secretly discusses "ticking time bombs" with industry

National Observer

By Mike De Souza in News, Energy | July 5th 2016 

Canada’s pipeline watchdog has given two of North America’s largest energy companies up to six months to fix what industry insiders have described as a series of “ticking time bombs.”

The National Energy Board waited eight years after U.S. regulators raised the alarm about substandard materials, finally issuing an emergency safety order in February. At least one Canadian pipeline with defective materials blew up during that period.

Newly-released federal documents show that Texas-based Kinder Morgan and Alberta-based Enbridge are both looking into the use of defective parts purchased from Thailand-based, Canadoil Asia, that recently went bankrupt. But the companies were not immediately able to say where they installed the dodgy parts. It’s a problem that also struck Alberta-based TransCanada, which had defective materials in its own pipelines, including one that blew up in 2013. More …

Michigan Chapter Update - July 3, 2016