Michiganders might savor the vast natural wonders of their home state without thinking much about things like land use, water tables, climate change, the power grid and legacy pollution concerns.
But MLive long has noticed, and responded by investing in environmental journalism. In my opinion we have the best team in the state, reporters Garret Ellison and Sheri McWhirter, who produce richly reported packages on topics of deep interest to Michigan residents.
Some issues are volatile, evidenced by their recent package of stories on the implications and concerns surrounding the planned reopening of the Palisades Nuclear Plant on Lake Michigan. That stands to be the first recommissioning of a closed nuclear power facility in U.S. history.
Others are more gentle, even surprising – like the ecological wonders and effects of human activities on Beaver Island, a remote island in Lake Michigan that stands as an environmental time capsule of sorts because of its location. Ellison and McWhirter spent a week there last summer with one of our multimedia specialists to bring amazing stories to MLive readers.
But Michigan is a big state and environmental concerns are woven through its land, its communities, its politics and its recreation. In short, we realize there are so many more stories to tell, and that’s why we’re adding a third reporter to the team.
Lucas Smolcic Larson, who has been a government reporter for The Ann Arbor News since 2021, is joining Ellison and McWhirter on the MLive environmental team.
“Sheri and Garret are experts in environmental journalism, but even they couldn’t cover it all,” said Shannon Murphy, who oversees environmental news for MLive. “We know this is an area with topics our readers care deeply about and we want to expand what they can get.”
Smolcic Larson is a native of Ecuador and grew up in Pennsylvania mountain biking, paddling and backpacking.He had family in the Grand Rapids area, though, and spent summers of his childhood at family property on, of all places, Beaver Island.
And he notes that environmental reporting has been a constant thread in his work covering community issues in Ann Arbor.
“I’ve been in rural township halls as multinational energy companies pitched solar arrays covering hundreds of acres of farmland. I worked with (reporter) Ryan Stanton to document the Gelman plume’s slow creep toward federal Superfund status. I’ve covered several new and existing gravel mines, including one in Ann Arbor Township whose operations sucked residents’ drinking water wells dry, and written stories about landfills and PFAS pollution.
Murphy said Smolcic Larson will cover an array of topics but will focus on Michigan’s utility grid and its vulnerabilities, which have been illustrated by high-profile outages after summer and winter storms in recent years.
“We know people are sick of constant power outages and we want to write more about how the electric grid operates and its oversight,” she said.
Smolcic Larson has some personal experience with that: “Over the past two years, I personally shivered through a prolonged power outage in 20-degree weather and fled to a friend’s house when the same thing happened as temperatures hit the 90s.
“Living in Ann Arbor, there is no one I meet who hasn’t had a similar experience. It’s important that MLive cover how investor-owned utilities like DTE Energy and Consumers Energy are performing relative to their peers in other states and offer some means of accountability when they fall short.”
He’ll contribute on other topics – he has an interest in the use of state parks and recreation areas, debates over local control of utility-scale wind and solar installations and sustainable agriculture.
“I think the stories that often resonate the most with readers are the ones happening in their backyards, and I’m hoping to be able to tell stories on the ground in different parts of the state,” he said.
Smolcic Larson says he’s also ready for what summer in Michigan can dish out: “If past summers are any guide, we’re probably in for more powerful storms and flooding, so I’ll also be ready to cover the impact of that weather on Michigan’s grid. I’m ready to get to it.”
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