Today’s weather forecast is predicting cloudy skies with a high of 53 degrees and a low of 30 degrees.
MSU board election results were temporarily incorrect due to a miscount
Roughly 20,000 votes were miscounted in the Michigan State University Board of Trustees race — an error that was later resolved but, before discovered, could have altered who won the second open seat.
Republican Mike Balow secured his place on the board last Thursday, receiving 24.9% of votes. Republican Julie Maday had been consistently in second place, but was overtaken by Democrat Rebecca Bahar-Cook Thursday afternoon when the additional votes were counted.
It’s still unclear whether Bahar-Cook will maintain her lead. With an estimated 99% of the votes in, AP has not yet called the second seat. Around 6,000 additional military and overseas ballots have yet to be counted, the Lansing State Journal reported.
In Ingham County, where MSU’s East Lansing campus is located, Democrats hold a stronger lead. Bahar-Cook and Stallworth currently hold 31.7% and 29.4% in the county, respectively, while Balow and Maday hold 17.4% and 16.8%.
MSU’s board is tasked with overseeing the president and making big-picture decisions about the university’s finances and operations. Their terms last eight years, with two seats opening up every two years. The trustees are elected in statewide partisan races, and occasionally appointed by the governor if a trustee’s resignation or other circumstances result in a vacated seat during a term.
Human remains found in freezer in East Lansing residence
The East Lansing Police Department is investigating a potential homicide after finding human remains inside a freezer in an East Lansing townhome in the 1500 block of Wintercrest Street.
In a press release, the department said officers arrived at the scene on Thursday after receiving a call indicating there was blood on the floor inside the residence. They entered the residence with help from the property management company.
After a further search, a deceased individual was found inside the freezer along with possible human remains of a second individual, according to the release.
In an interview with WLNS, neighbor Andrew Whitney said he hadn’t seen anyone enter or leave the townhome for months. East Lansing Interim Police Chief Chad Pride told WLNS the pool of blood was dried, and the police believe this incident is something that happened further back.
Pride said the delay in finding the remains will make the investigation harder, but he has faith the detectives will get to the bottom of it.
Evidence was taken from the residence by Michigan State Police and is being examined at a crime lab.
The ELPD’s statement, released shortly after the remains were found, said the investigation is ongoing and no arrests were made. According to the statement, there is no threat to the public at this time.
MSU facilities work together to turn waste into power
Three different Michigan State University departments are working together in sustainable practices to convert campus waste into energy.
In 2008, MSU established the Anaerobic Digestion Research and Education Center (ADREC), which turns animal and culinary waste into power for the campus. MSU Culinary Services and MSU Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center contribute different kinds of waste to sustainably convert it.
The gasses generated from the process are converted into energy and used in the MSU power grid. There are two digesters on the south side of campus. They are used for research purposes as well as contributing power to campus. Students use it to study microbiology and engineering processes.
According to MSU’s sustainability website, MSU is one of three universities in the U.S. with a “self-sustaining” anaerobic digester.
All of the waste comes from two different sources: the MSU Dairy Farm and Brody dining hall.
When food is discarded, it is placed in the trough with water, which then goes through a pulper, a machine that breaks down food into smaller pieces.
Brody is the only dining hall with a pulper that allows for this process.
There is no plan of installing a pulper in other cafeterias due to each dining hall’s unique design. However, food scraps do not go to waste, and are used for other sustainability programs.
The properties of the food waste is how the digester turns the product into methane.
Waste from the farm arrives at the digester more often than the food waste. Manager at the MSU Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center Jim Good said they transport manure from the farm twice a day.
Good said every transport is 1,500 gallons of manure. The farm also has an underground pump, which transports around 9,000 gallons of manure in one day, totaling 12,000 gallons of waste from the farm daily.
According to MSU’s sustainability website, operators add 20,000 gallons of waste to the digester every day, where microorganisms break down the waste in the holding tank for 20-30 days.
Good said manure does not disappear after the process. According to MSU’s sustainability website, the ending byproducts after the material is broken down are liquid and solid fertilizers.
To reduce other contaminants at the source, the machine at Brody has magnets on the side to pull any metal materials mixed in with the food waste out of the system’s flow. This is part of the campus’s sustainability practices, with the idea of eliminating landfill dumping.
Based on original reporting by Theo Scheer, Hannah Holycross and Anna Rossow.
