Common Groundwater

The country roads around the small town of Albion are some of the prettiest you'll see in Michigan. Take it from this podcast host, who would run them with his cross country teammates at Albion College. Now, there are new neighbors out among the corn and soy and old trees, stunning in their own way but undeniably different: solar panels. Over 4,000 acres of them, generating enough electricity...

Michigan's crops are the second-most diverse of any state. We tried to replicate that point of pride that in this episode. We went to two seemingly disparate places to talk about the critical relationship farms have with pollinators. First, we took the train to small-town Dowagiac in southwest Michigan to talk to Merry Clark about the history and benefits of organic and regenerative farming....

In the mid-1900s, governments and industries across the globe were using the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT. Then came Silent Spring , a book by Rachel Carson that thoroughly documented the harm caused by DDT to waters, to wildlife and to people. It galvanized a movement that ultimately led to the chemical’s large-scale ban. Now some are saying a new Silent Spring movement must...

Swallow-wort. A vine with beautiful, star-shaped flowers. It tricks insects into laying eggs on its leaves. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the leaves—and die with a one hundred percent mortality rate. Lesser celandine. A plant with bright, glossy, yellow flowers. It blooms early in the spring, outcompeting other plants only to offer little nutritional value to insects fresh out of hibernation...

Yes, the pollinators of Michigan are the animals and insects, like bees and hummingbirds, that help plants grow and reproduce by moving flower to flower. But "The Pollinators" is also the name for Carly and David Cirilli, co-founders of the nonprofit Plymouth Pollinators. Over the past few years, the Cirillis and an ever-growing list of gardeners have created a string of beautiful, funct...

Eli Cooper likes he to say he was "born to ride." He grew up taking buses and subways in The Bronx. Now, as Oakland County's transit manager, he helps the residents, workers and visitors of Michigan's second-most-populous county get to where they want or need to go. Hired after citizens voted to expand transit in all Oakland communities, he and the system operators—SMART and WO...

Wexford County in the northwest Lower Peninsula of Michigan has about 33,500 residents across it’s 575 square miles. The WexExpress , the county’s transit system, provided 155,000 rides last year alone... and that number is rising. Parents use it take toddlers to Head Start programs. Teens take it to class and after-school activities. Adults take it for manufacturing jobs. Seniors take it to get t...

New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens. "The European Mind Cannot Comprehend This." City Beautiful. These are the (respective) internet communities, memes and influencers that have brought America's rising generations together around transit. As Petra Mihelko of Transportation Riders United puts it, these phenomena "put into words" what the youth want: Beautiful, us...

It's Season 2 of Common Groundwater!  We'll be taking this podcast on the road across the state to the places where the problems, stories and solutions to the topics we talk about are happening. Plus, we'll be leaning on you, the listener, to ask us questions and shape our discussions. We can't wait! ---- Now's the time to expand transit. Well, we at the Environmental Coun...

Last year, dozens of folks came to Saugatuck to hear the plans of legislators to restore protections for dunes and their neighboring communities against destructive, risky development.  Michigan's globally unique dunes are nearly universally loved. So was that love met with new laws? Can consensus be found? Our Michigan Environmental Council teammate Emily Smith has more. ---- Learn about Gre...

Update: Better building codes for all homes and building have been adopted in Michigan! You can read about it here. ---- At the confluence of ever-rising housing costs and an ever-changing climate comes a single opportunity: make Michigan's homes, old and new, cleaner, greener and cozier.  In 2024, we spent time on the pod going over what these homes look like and how we create them en masse....

Michiganders have used their state's bottle deposit system to keep billions of beverages out of our communities, nature and landfills. Now, as the system nears its 50th birthday, a plan is forming to make the system even better. More recycling. Less hassle. A proud history. A bright future. But where does the bottle deposit system stand in the present? Trent Wolf, the Michigan Environmental C...

Last year, we brough you a miniseries on the ways in which politicking has frozen and muddied longstanding water protections Michiganders expect their Great Lakes State to have. Reese Dillard, Environmental Council water policy specialist, joins us for an update on where water laws stand in the wake of a changed state and federal government and why she has hope for the future, near and far. ---- L...

It's a special, standalone episode of the Common Groundwater podcast, and it's packed with urgency, policy and opportunities for action. In 2025, Michigan and the nation will undergo power shifts, and if we take our new leaders at their word, we can expect roadblocks and rollbacks to environmental progress. This month is a prime moment for legislators to pass a good environmental policy...

Our dunes miniseries has focused on, well, dunes thus far, but the conversation we're really having is on the relationship between development and nature. Jake Parcell, executive director of Scenic Michigan, joins us to provide other perspectives of this relationship: aesthetics and sight pollution. In our fourth episode, we'll talk about scenic byways, dark sky parks, nature nearby and...

UPDATE: The legislation discussed failed to pass the Michigan Legislature. For the latest updates on our efforts, click here . In Saugatuck, it's symbiotic. Hundreds of acres of preserved, rare, freshwater dunes can be found along the area's coast. That, in turn, has created delightful small towns with big tourist economies. But all this goodness did not come from nothing, and there&apos...

UPDATE: The bills discussed in this podcast episode did not pass the Michigan Legislature. For the latest update, click here . Last episode, Tanya Cabala took us through the geologic, social and political histories of Michigan's globally special freshwater dunes. That last bit of history, the political, has recently not been too pretty. Emily Smith of the Michigan Environmental Council joins...

Buy a pop. Pay a little extra. Drink it. Rinse it. Return it, and then get that little extra back. Michigan’s bottle deposit system sounds simple, and yet it’s internationally known for keeping bottles and cans out of our landfills and landscapes. Now, as its 50th anniversary nears, it’s time to bring this beloved and successful system from the 70s into the present. The Michigan Environmental Coun...

Michigan is home to the world's largest assemblage of freshwater dunes. They run up and down the west coast of the Lower Peninsula and dotted along the Upper Peninsula. They're beloved by just about anyone who visits (and many do), and they help power both multimillion-dollar local economies and some of the most diverse wildlife in the state. Tanya Cabala of the West Michigan Environment...

Michigan’s bottle deposit system: Buy a beverage, pay a bit of upcharge, drink it, return it, get that upcharge back. It’s as routine an experience for us Michiganders as talking about the weather. Yet, it’s extremely powerful. It's a way for us, as individuals, to come together to make collective change. That’s also how the law came to be: through a ballot campaign that 63% of people voted i...

Ink from recycled paper, of all things, was what polluted the Kalamazoo River Watershed so much, it was placed in two federal cleanup programs. Paper mills, oil spills, dams, manure—the "Kazoo" has seen it all. And yet, this watershed and its inhabitants have persevered. With contamination comes a fierce pride, and with pride comes action. The Kalamazoo River Watershed Council was create...

The environmental arm of our state was created to protect our land, water, wildlife and us residents from pollution—it's enshrined in Michigan's constitution. And yet, over the course of 30 years, the department and its thousands of employees have been stripped of its powers time and again, rendering it far more toothless than we might expect. In our last episode of our water pollution m...

UPDATE: The bills discussed in this episode did not pass the Michigan Legislature. For the latest update on our efforts, click here . Michigan’s environmental duties are defined by an act that is hundreds of thousands of words long. Included is 22,000 words that give our state its rules to fight pollution in our lakes and streams.  These words stayed strong for years until, in the early 2000s, a s...

"God. Guns. Gas Stoves." That's what a prominent legislator posted on social media early in 2023. Welcome to the Stove War, a cultural flashpoint that pitted gas stoves against their electric counterparts. As with most viral debates, misinformation spouted. Chef Chris Galarza joins us to break stoves down from environmental, health and cooking perspectives in our final episode of ou...

Eric Schertzing considers land banks like a Veg-O-Matic. These entities offer a plethora of innovative ways to hold and redevelop properties in our communities. Eric joins us in the third episode of our green housing miniseries to discuss how the Michigan Association of Land Banks and its members can help set the standard for our homes of the future. ---- To learn more about the Michigan Associati...