Shows
Common GroundwaterOf Swallow-Wort & CelandineSwallow-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. It then dies and leaves a bare patch of ground for other harmful plants to inhabit.Both these plants are invasive species. They not only contribute to the suffering of pollinator in...2025-07-2532 minCommon GroundwaterThe PollinatorsYes, 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, functional and even critical gardens just for pollinators in their slice of Metro Detroit.Carly, David and host Beau Brockett discuss this work and why it and the flora and fauna it benefits...2025-06-1631 minCommon GroundwaterSMART Service, FAST RoutesEli 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 WOTA and NOTA and more—have made it the easiest it's ever been to travel within and past the county. But they've never strayed away from their, as Eli says, 'bread and butt...2025-05-2228 minCommon GroundwaterTransit is a Small-Town ValueWexford 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 to the doctor’s. All sorts of people take it for appointments and fun trips and rides home from the bar. It's for everyday life.Carrie Thompson, executive director of WexExpress joined Common Ground...2025-04-2831 minCommon GroundwaterThe Proof of YouthNew 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, useful, connective places that can be traveled within and traveled to in all sorts of ways.Mihalko, a Gen Zer, and Beau Brockett, a questionable Millennial, talk about how and why so many young Michiganders (and older folks, too) want good buses, trains and...2025-03-3128 minCommon GroundwaterAfter We Put the World on WheelsIt'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 Council would argue any time’s a good time. But with a rising cost of living, swelling support and major state funding discussions, Michigan has a unique opportunity to capitalize on the...2025-03-1529 minCommon GroundwaterWhere Are We Now? DunesLast 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 Great Lakes coasts and other ecosystems through the Michigan Environmental Council. You can also subscribe via email and follow on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.----Common Groundwater is hosted by t...2025-02-2812 minCommon GroundwaterWhere Are We Now? Green BuildingsUpdate: 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. Now, Carlee Knott, the Michigan Environmental Council's climate and energy policy specialist, gives a recap and an update on the state of things.----2025-02-2520 minCommon GroundwaterWhere Are We Now? A Better Bottle BillMichiganders 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 Council's strategic campaigns director, gives us a sense in our latest podcast episode. He talks dropping recycling rates, public polling and the secret way we can improve our bottle return experience and clean...2025-02-0824 minCommon GroundwaterWhere Are We Now? Water ProtectionsLast 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.----Learn about water protections and more through the Michigan Environmental Council. You can also subscribe to its email and follow it on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.2025-01-3117 minCommon GroundwaterWe Can't Be Lame Ducks - Special FeatureIt'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 into law before a regime change—a time we call “lame duck.”But despite great legislation in the works, lawmakers are seemingly willing to forgo bold action out of personal slights and co...2024-12-0638 minCommon GroundwaterSights for Sore EyeOur 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 the mundane polluters of sight we may come to accept (but certainly shouldn't).----You can also check out Scenic Michigan's site for ordinances and viewing events.Learn about water protections and...2024-11-2236 minCommon GroundwaterHow You Dune?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's still goodness still to protect.Saugatuck's dunes and economy have come about through years of yeoman's work building relationships, working through the courts and organizing. David Swan, its president, joins us in the third...2024-11-1639 minCommon GroundwaterLines in the SandUPDATE: 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 us in this episode to expound upon that. She'll go over how recent changes have put both dunes and nearby communities at risk and how new legislation can make both nature and society thrive together.2024-10-2532 minCommon GroundwaterCold One Cracked OpenBuy 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 Council and groups across the state have a vison: (Almost) any beverage returned at almost any place with more environmental protections to boot.Join Environmental Council Presid...2024-10-1933 minCommon GroundwaterTurn of the HourglassMichigan 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 Environmental Action Council, a self-proclaimed "dunista," takes us through the environmental, social and political histories of dunes and where they intersect.----To learn more about the geographic, social...2024-10-1238 minCommon GroundwaterLightning in a BottleMichigan’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 in favor of back in 1976. Now, people love it even more. Over 9 in 10 bottles have been returned through the system over 48 years. Bill Rustem was the...2024-10-0433 minCommon GroundwaterFrom in the Red To in the BlackInk 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 created to bring its namesake river out of the red and into the black. It's been doing a just that, all while bringing folks of diverse geographies and histories together to protect the wa...2024-07-0846 minCommon GroundwaterThe Polluter RulebookThe 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 miniseries, we learned how one sentence froze Michigan's pollution laws back in time. Now, Christy McGillivray of the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter puts that sentence into context. She tells us how one governor be...2024-06-2134 minCommon GroundwaterThe SentenceUPDATE: 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 single sentence was added. It changed everything. As Megan Tinsley, the Environmental Council’s water policy director, notes, this sentence has kept Michigan back in time...2024-06-1731 minCommon GroundwaterThe Stove War"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 our green housing miniseries.----To learn more about Chef Galarza's induction cooking advocacy group, click here.To check out Chef Galarza's book on the green industrial revolution, click here.To see if...2024-04-2642 minCommon GroundwaterHomes of the FutureEric 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 Association of Land Banks and get in contact with your local land bank, click here.To get other stories, information and opportunities around green housing, click here.2024-04-2027 minCommon GroundwaterUp to CodeUpdate: Better building codes for all homes and building have been adopted in Michigan! You can read about it here.----Michigan homes have high pollution levels and high prices. How can we possibly change that for all 4.5 million of them and counting? For climate expert Carlee Knott, the answer is by cracking the code (literally) of home development and repair. In this second episode of our green housing miniseries, we talk about housing as a solution to our cost of living and climate change crises.----To get other stories...2024-04-1232 minCommon GroundwaterHave a Haven?Michigan's in a bit of an odd place. It's considered a climate haven, a place that can protect people from the worst of climate change. But its literal havens—our homes—are causing problems. They're old, expensive, elusive and, in fact, causing climate change. In the first episode of our green housing miniseries, Crain's Detroit Business reporter (and Detroiter) Nick Manes joins us to talk about the state of housing and how it serves as both a problem and a solution to our state.----To follow Nick's real estate reporting, go to crainsdetroit.com. ...2024-04-0632 minCommon GroundwaterThis is Common GroundwaterWelcome to Common Groundwater, a podcast by the Michigan Environmental Council and hosted by pleasant peninsula diehard Beau Brockett Jr. Like Michigan's mysterious yet necessary groundwater—our so-called sixth Great Lake—Common Groundwater tells tales of environmental issues by going to all corners of the state, by going deep into the nuance, and by bringing out a story arc that's grand in scale yet personal to all of us.Common Groundwater will be split into four-episode miniseries. Each miniseries will have its own topic of focus with additional opportunities to learn more, get excited, and take...2024-03-1504 min
Washington Square On AirA Series of Small Towns With Beau BrockettEditor Susan Serafin-Jess connects with Michigan journalist and poet Beau Brockett to talk about the three poems he contributed towards the summer 2022 edition of Washington Square Review. Website: Michigan Environmental CouncilWebsite: Washington Square Review2023-04-2925 min
LCC Connect Weekly ProgramLCC Connect Program: April 29 - Hour 2Episode LineupCoach Cut’s Corner Guest: Noah Bright / Stars Baseball Catcher / Transferring to Richmond UniversityMichigan History Moment Topic: Grand Hotel on Mackinac IslandWashington Square On-Air Guest: Beau Brockett / Journalist & PoetLCC Connect can be heard live on 89.7FM WLNZ and online at https://www.lcc.edu/connect/listen.htmlSaturdays: 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.Sundays: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.2023-04-2900 min