Crystal River high water: an omen and a lesson in resilience

The good news is that the Crystal River is healthy. She winds like a lazy snake through wetlands protected by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, so when excessive rain or snowmelt inundate her environment—as happened during record flooding in early April—the extra water has a place to go. The other good news is that the removal of culverts in three locations under County Road 675 during the past five years has helped the river flow more freely and relieves pressure during high water events. The bad news is that two more culverts remain downstream of The Mill. Those culverts restrict water flow beneath Overbrook Drive. The other bad news is that scientists who study climate change in the Great Lakes region predict more frequent and more intense extreme weather events, including rainstorms.

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Traverse City immigrant joins hunger strike inside Baldwin ICE facility; local faith leaders pray, fast in solidarity

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Soon after Lynn’s husband arrived on March 5 at the North Lake Processing Center — the mammoth ICE detention center in Baldwin, Michigan — the food began to make him sick. “I haven’t seen an orange the whole time I’ve been here,” the husband told Lynn, a U.S. citizen and Traverse City resident who shared their family’s story with the Glen Arbor Sun this week. The couple, who have a 2.5-year-old son, worship at Guadalupe Chapel in southeastern Leelanau County, where local clergy held a prayer service and press conference on Monday to illuminate the plight of detainees in federal custody. Lynn’s husband is one of several immigrants detained, as ICE detentions mount in Northern Michigan.

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U.S. Supreme Court unanimously backs Nessel, keeps Line 5 case in Michigan court

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday handed Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel a victory, offering a unanimous decision that laid to rest a years-long debate over whether her case to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline should be heard in state or federal court.  In an 14-page opinion penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court held that Enbridge had missed its 30-day window to have the case removed to federal court, with the Canadian energy company making its request 887 days after receiving Nessel’s initial complaint.  The company’s Line 5 pipeline has been a long-running concern for tribal nations and environmentalists in the region, with Nessel calling it a “ticking time bomb” for the Great Lakes.

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Leland Planning Commission rejects Youth for Christ’s application for Lighthouse ministry in Fishtown

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Following months of deliberation and impassioned public hearings, the Leland Planning Commission tonight rejected Apollos Properties’ special use permit application for a Youth for Christ “Lighthouse” ministry in Fishtown. In so doing, the Commission sided with findings-of-fact from outside attorney Tom Grier that found grounds to deny the special use permit. Conversely, Grier—an attorney with Running Wise & Ford—also prepared a separate document that offered the Commission a path to approve the ministry. The apparently dueling reports seemed to give the Commission defensible legal ground in the event that  Apollos’ owner Jim VanSteenhouse, known as the “Bear Man,” appeals the decision or sues the Township. Much of the debate centered around whether a Youth for Christ ministry could qualify as a “club” allowed in Leland’s C-1 business district. Grier’s analysis that opposed a special use permit concluded that “private clubs, meeting halls, churches and religious institutions are not allowed as permitted or special land uses in the C-1 district.”

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Voices and Visions: Women artists declare “We will not whisper” at Alluvion exhibit

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For women in particular, art has long been a vehicle for confronting gendered, social, or political marginalization. Across generations, women have used storytelling, language, the body, performance, and self-representation to make experiences previously overlooked visible. That art resonates in present-day America—a time marked by rising authoritarianism, assaults on reproductive rights, threats to LGBTQ+ communities, pervasive gun violence, environmental instability, the humanitarian crisis surrounding migration, and now, an escalating global conflict in the Middle East. This tradition of female conscience persists today, urgent and uncompromising, manifest in the work of a cohort of women artists here in northern Michigan, presented in the exhibition “We Will Not Whisper” which is on display at the Alluvion in Traverse City until April 11.

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Bear Man’s lawyer questions Fishtown’s tax-exempt status, escalating Youth for Christ battle in Leland

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Business owners, local parents, and the Fishtown Preservation Society oppose Apollos Properties’ and Youth for Christ’s contentious bid for a special land use permit to create a youth ministry in a building they own in the heart of Leland’s business district. Now Youth for Christ is striking back and elevating the legal stakes of this battle playing out in a small Leelanau County town but with potential implications far beyond Northern Michigan. On March 10, Timothy White, an attorney with the Parker Harvey law firm, sent a letter on behalf of their client, Apollos owner Jim VanSteenhouse, to the Leland Township assessor and board of review. That letter questioned the charitable tax-exempt status of the Fishtown Preservation Society in the town’s historic district of fish shanties. The district includes VanSteenhouse’s property at at 110 North Lake St. where Youth for Christ wants a ministry.

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Former Gilchrist cooks Jackson, Tootla compete on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef”

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Leland resident and former Gilchrist Farm Winery chef Jennifer Lee Jackson found herself once again in the racetrack pit during the opening episode of “Top Chef”—just as when she cooked burgers and fried chicken sandwiches as a teenager at the racetrack her father operated in rural Georgia. But this time she honed her craft in front of hundreds of thousands who watched her on television. Jackson and her partner, Detroit native Justin Tootla, are competing in Season 23 of the popular Bravo show, which premiers March 9. Competing on the show “was so much harder than we thought it would be,” Tootla told the Glen Arbor Sun. “We’ve been huge fans of the show and have watched it since Season 1. For 20 years we’ve played ‘Monday morning quarterback,’ judging contestants as much as they were judged on the show. “But when you’re in the mix, when the clock starts and you’re cooking, it’s intense! Being in other people’s kitchens, you have to adapt on the fly.”

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Tough Supreme Court hearing brings little clarity on Line 5’s fate

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday, Feb. 24, about whether state or federal court will have the final say on the future of the controversial Line 5 pipeline, which carries crude oil and natural gas liquids across the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan. The case dates to a 2019 lawsuit by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who moved to shut down the pipeline by revoking the easement that allows it to cross the Straits, citing risks to the Great Lakes. (Over its 73-year lifetime, Line 5 has spilled over a million gallons of oil along its inland route.) A shutdown is supported by all 12 federally recognized tribes in Michigan, though they are not involved in the suit. Many tribal nations say the pipeline threatens their waters, treaty rights, and ways of life.

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Communities, researchers measure ice thickness on the Great Lakes

Scientists are asking for help from the public this winter to measure how thick the ice is on the Great Lakes and inland lakes. Data submitted by ice fishers and other people who spend time on frozen lakes could improve the models that forecast ice cover on the Great Lakes. Satellites do a good job at capturing how much ice there is, but not how thick it is, according to researchers at the Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) in Ann Arbor. More data could give researchers insight as to how climate change is altering ice cover in the region and provide important safety information for people out on the ice.

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New Michigan program aims to help farms continue by connecting buyers with sellers

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For the past three years, David Weeks has searched for a young farmer to take over his organic vegetable farm, La Casa Verde, in Cedar. But, so far, he hasn’t found a buyer who intends to keep the property as a working farm. “I strongly want to see this property remain in agriculture and remain a part of the resilient Michigan community and economy,” he said. “The last thing I want is for this property to get bought by some gazillionaire and they knock down the old buildings and build an estate house, and they’re there two weeks out of the year.” In October, Weeks began advertising his farm on MIFarmLink, a new program that helps match aspiring farmers with those looking to retire and hand their operations over to the next generation. One goal of MIFarmLink is to ensure farmland remains farmland amid a push by big developers to convert rural properties to data centers, solar or wind farms, housing, and other projects.

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