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Highlighting emergency management in August

As Michigan continues to face increasingly frequent and complex disasters that require coordinated response efforts across all levels of government, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has declared August as Emergency Management Awareness Month. The Michigan State Police, Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division is recognizing the dedicated emergency management professionals who work year-round to help communities prepare for, respond to, recover from and mitigate disasters. Throughout August, the MSP/EMHSD will highlight the critical work of emergency managers and the partnerships that ...

Prime time of year to visit farmers markets in area

Though seeing the summer days slip by carries a little sadness, one of the prime benefits of August is fresh produce and other products that can be purchased — often only a short time after being picked — at the farmers markets that set up in area communities. Most gardens or farms that cultivate fruits and vegetables are now far enough along in the season to have a wide variety available for sale. And many area communities, even in the Upper Peninsula, have regular days of the week or month when vendors gather with what they’ve grown this year. Locally, the Escanaba Farmers ...

War against sea lamprey expensive but worth the money

While it might seem to some that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is throwing good money after bad fighting the invasive sea lamprey, we support continued efforts by this agency and others to rid the Great Lakes and adjacent waters of this nasty invasive species. Sea lamprey are parasitic fish native to the Atlantic Ocean that invaded the Great Lakes via shipping canals in the early 1900s. They attach to fish with a suction-cup mouth lined with sharp teeth, feed on their body fluids, killing up to 40 pounds of fish during their parasitic phase. Many Great Lakes anglers can ruefully ...