Keith Matheny

'Don't believe everything that you breathe.' - Beck.
I'm the environmental reporter for the Detroit Free Press [email protected]

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Fire Monday at DTE Energy's Fermi 2 prompts the nuclear plant's emergency shutdown.

Employees, public were at no time under threat, DTE says.

https://t.co/XgWLpuh0sk

@freep

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

"I can confidently say that 100% of the eagles that we admitted in 2025 had some level of lead," a Grand Traverse County raptor rehabilitator said

@freep

https://t.co/vbEhhXF78X

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

A U-M study dives into yet another factor in crashing bird populations: the impacts of noise pollution.

https://t.co/xHROSMHzyU

@freep

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Controversial Wayne Disposal hazardous waste landfill gets new operating license from @MichiganEGLE, approval for 24% capacity expansion.

@freep

https://t.co/AtFm1eA4W8

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

A relentlessly cold and snowy winter across much of the country has de-icing road salt in scarce supply - and its cost skyrocketing.

@freep

https://t.co/Aduibqv63U

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Hyperscale data centers nationwide are expected to consume between 16 billion and 33 billion gallons of water by 2028, according to a recent study. That approximately equals the amount of water every resident of Metro Detroit uses in three months.
@freep

https://t.co/VQuvTyeskD

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

A meteor Monday night seems to have broken apart and possibly reached the Earth very close to the final resting place of the Edmund Fitzgerald in eastern Lake Superior -- one week to the day before the 50th anniversary of her sinking. 😳

H/T @MiStormChasers

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Bottle and can redemptions above a dime? More redemption-eligible containers? Those are among the ideas floated to bolster Michigan's declining program.

@freep

https://t.co/NRLBnthqVw

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Peanut, a rescued ill fawn, is slated to be killed this week after a Michigan DNR euthanization order.

A wildlife rehabilitator who helped the fawn says it's over a missed paperwork deadline, and that the DNR is misinterpreting its own rules.

@freep

https://t.co/C9NVrl9rwC

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

My story from last month:

https://t.co/cn3gr0Evw2

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

I had the honor of interviewing Jane Goodall on Sept. 8, less than a month before her passing today.

She approached the world around her with a sense of wonder, appreciation and responsibility, and approached her own mortality the same way.

I share a clip from our talk here.

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

After two years of study, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' scientific research arm has a plan for dealing with the rising problem of blue-green algae muck on the shorelines of Lake St. Clair.

It won't be small, quick or cheap.

@freep

https://t.co/M5ZzYLQpWu

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Childhood friends from Milford, after traveling together and visiting about 20 U.S. National Parks, got an idea: What if they visited them all?

63 National Parks, from the Alaskan Arctic to the U.S. Virgin Islands. From American Samoa to Maine.

@freep

https://t.co/2aRieUl12S

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Circuit Court judge issues injunction stopping all shipments of elevated radioactivity waste from legacy U.S. atomic weapons and energy sites to Wayne County hazardous waste landfill.

https://t.co/DeM1WoyxSw

@freep

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

A summer cooler for you.

A journalistic popsicle.

https://t.co/qN8igxooLD

[The Mackinac Bridge @mackinacbridge]

Unfortunately, what you're seeing today is not fog surrounding the @mackinacbridge but smoke coming from the wildfires and our neighbors to the North.

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Controversial Wayne Disposal hazardous waste landfill in Van Buren Township seeks @MichiganEGLE permission to further expand and add a new hazardous waste treatment procedure.

@freep

https://t.co/1p0RxIc7EN

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

A chemical plant site in Wyandotte is leaching contaminated groundwater into the Detroit River - including mercury many hundreds of times over EGLE and EPA standards.

EGLE says the company is violating a court settlement; BASF says it isn't.

@freep

https://t.co/Wx5y8dCyjB

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

Controversy has arisen as Metroparks has studied future options on the Flat Rock dam, including its potential removal.

The sale of the dam to city of Flat Rock, Huron Township or both would provide more local control over the dam's future, parks officials said.

[Keith Matheny @keithmatheny]

.@MIMetroparks offers to sell Flat Rock dam on Huron River to @FlatRockMich or Huron Township -- for $5.

https://t.co/tFrAtzrEqb

@freep