Author Archive

Thrilled to see a breached Condit Dam

River Rally 2012 is underway in Portland, Oregon. I’m here with Laura, Kris, Pam and Jason and 600 members of the international watershed conservation community. For those of us who work to protect rivers, River Network’s Rally is the event of the year for sharing successes, making new connections, and seeing friends from across the country.

Field trips during Rally offer us the chance to see local rivers and hear directly from our peers about their projects. The five of us fanned out across the Portland area on Sunday to witness the following cool projects:

• Stream restoration via bicycle along the Springwater Corridor Trail that runs alongside Johnson Creek including a large salmon habitat enhancement project on the Willamette River built in 2011 with engineered log jams and a constructed riffle

• The decommissioned Condit Dam (October 2011) and newly free-flowing White Salmon River with a tour lead by the company and advocates directly involved in efforts to remove the dam

• Innovative green infrastructure projects in the City of Portland including a daylighted stream integrated into a housing project, ecoroofs, habitat restoration, and community-based green infrastructure

Floodplain restoration project on Johnson Creek

We’ve also been reminded that clean water makes great beer!

Check out the Huron River and HRWC’s friends at Schultz Outfitters in this feature article (and awesome photos) from concentrate.

Already into fly fishing? Sign up for the Second Annual Huron River Single Fly Tournament on June 16th. Haven’t yet caught the fly fishing fever? Sign up for one of the free fly fishing instruction sessions hosted by HRWC and experienced instructors from Ann Arbor Trout Unlimited on June 2nd and 3rd. There’s no need to travel hundreds of miles for excellent fishing on a fly — it’s all right here on the Huron.

With a location in Ypsilanti’s Depot Town, Mike Schultz and his team are investing in the river-based economy. Developing and sustaining local businesses in river towns that tie recreation to local growth is a tenet of RiverUp!, HRWC’s initiative with National Wildlife Federation and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters Education Fund. Way to RiverUp!, Schultz Outfitters!

The Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame logo

The Huron River Watershed Council has been selected as the first Non-Profit Organization to be inducted in to the Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame, announced officials with the Muskegon Environmental Research & Education Society on Tuesday. The Society’s press release stated that HRWC is known for “building partnerships between and among communities, community leaders, residents and commercial enterprises.” Executive Director Laura Rubin will represent HRWC at the inaugural induction ceremony for the Hall of Fame on May 2, 2012 at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.

The Society’s Chairman Ron Brown commended HRWC on making “a significant difference in improving the environment of the Huron River. It is time that we bring honor to those non-profits that have worked tirelessly to make sure we can always have a safe and nurturing environment to live in, not just for ourselves, but for the generations to come.” HRWC is honored by this recognition.

The first class of inductees also includes five impressive individuals from around the state for their roles in promoting environmental causes.

Sure, there’s plenty of exciting, blog-worthy river work happening on the Huron that I could share with you, friends of the river. But, it’s Monday and rainy, so how about we talk about something not so serious?

We had some fun in the HRWC offices this week modeling our new swag. (Thanks, Laura and REI!)

Now you’ll be able to easily identify our staff at HRWC functions, or when we’re out buying groceries or walking the dog (and picking up after Fido, of course).

Our Finance Director, Jen, being a good sport

Winter just can't get a foothold

Here we are in mid-January, and the ground has yet to freeze this winter and the snowfall measures a scant few inches. This week’s forecast continues the pattern of the past several weeks with a few days below freezing interspersed with 40+ degree F days. It seems the comments that I hear from others fall into either the “so pleased not to be shoveling” camp or the “yep, it’s climate change, alright” camp. In my house, these camps are represented along with the increasingly high-pitched “when can we go sledding?!” kids camp.

Is the weather thus far this winter related to changing climate trends? Difficult to say since the difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time. We’re not the only ones wondering. Our friends at River Network also blogged recently about the weather weirdness with an eye on the western states.

For some perspective, we have the benefit of working with the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA) Center, the NOAA-funded collaboration between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. At the December kickoff of HRWC’s year-long project to assess climate adaptation needs for key sectors in the watershed, I invited Dr. Jeff Andresen, state climatologist and GLISA faculty, to share his insights on climate trends in Michigan.

While I suggest you spend some time on the GLISA website for the context and explanation of the data, here’s a summary of Jeff’s main points (emphases mine):

• Overall, mean average temperatures in Michigan rose approximately 1.0ºF during the past century. Warming of about 2.0ºF has occurred between 1980 and the present, much of it concentrated during the winter season and at night
• Milder winter temperatures have led to less ice cover on the Great Lakes and the seasonal spring warm-up is occurring earlier than in the past
• Annual precipitation rates increased from the 1930s through the 1990s but have leveled off recently
• Most recent Global Circulation Model simulations of the Great Lakes region suggest a warmer and wetter climate in the distant future, with much of the additional precipitation coming during the cold season months
• Projections of future climate change in Michigan suggest a mix of beneficial and adverse impacts
• A changing climate leads to many potential challenges for dependent human and natural systems, especially with respect to climate variability

In the coming months, we will engage our partners in watershed communities involved in infrastructure, in-stream flows, and natural resources decisions to discuss what type of climate resources they need most to incorporate climate adaptation into decision making.

The most difficult dam portage on the river

A big part of building the Huron River Water Trail means making the portages around dams safer and easier for paddlers. Everyone agrees that the portage of the Flat Rock Dam in the City of Flat Rock is the most difficult. The designated portage is to boat to a concrete pillar next to Flat Rock Metal and then haul yourself, your canoe or kayak and gear several feet vertical to perch on the pillar. Then proceed on foot a few yards to a locked chain link fence (avec barbed wire) and hope that you remembered to call the company ahead of time to arrange access. See the problem?

This past week, the work group investigating the portages along the Huron River walked the area to figure out a better portage. We are working with HCMA, the City of Flat Rock, Flat Rock Metals and others to figure out a more accessible way for paddlers to enjoy the Downriver reach of the Huron River. In so doing, we’ll be attempting to balance access to river recreation and water trail town businesses with costs and property owner interests. We anticipate having portage concepts sketched out during the winter.

We are nearly speechless about the audacity of the Barrasso-Heller Amendment to H. R. 2354 that the U.S. Senate is poised to vote on in a few days.

This rider to the fiscal year 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill would permanently block efforts to make sure  the most fragile waters are protected by the Clean Water Act. The amendment would prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from clarifying the extent to which wetlands and intermittent streams are protected under the Clean Water Act.

We are signing on to the letter from Michigan environmental organizations stating opposition to the amendment. Your voice can and should be heard, too.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION: Call Senators Levin and Stabenow to tell them to VOTE NO on the Barrasso-Heller Dirty Water Amendment to H.R. 2354.

Call the Capitol Hill directory at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected.

WHAT TO SAY

The message to convey to the Senators is simple: Ask them to vote NO on the Barrasso-Heller Amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations (H.R. 2354).  A vote for the Barrasso-Heller Amendment is a vote in favor of dirtier water.  A vote against this dirty water amendment is a vote in favor of safer and cleaner water for all Americans.

You can learn more about this amendment by reading this fact sheet from leading national environmental organizations.

Keynote David Misky shares the Milwaukee experience with conference attendees

On a recent grey, rainy Michigan day, the talk at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield was about green and blue. More than 100 professionals gathered for the one-day conference, What Color is Your Infrastructure? to learn and share experiences with using green infrastructure and low impact development techniques for the benefit of clean water. The first-of-its-kind conference for southeastern Michigan was sponsored by a team of partners lead by the Alliance of Downriver Watersheds.

HRWC fingerprints were all over the event as staff led the planning and presented during breakout sessions. A few staff also attended to learn the latest on what’s working in communities in this region. HRWC watershed ecologist Kris Olsson attended to hear the “women of GI” give what she describes as an informative and inspiring  talk on how communities can make connections on a common goal like green infrastructure despite their other differences. “Even just learning about the processes they employed to engage the community stakeholders was helpful,” she confessed. Kris expects to tap into this information as part of the Bioreserve project she manages. HRWC also will begin a new project this fall to identify locations ripe for green infrastructure projects with funds from the MDEQ.

Even if you missed the conference, you can glean the highlights of the presentations by viewing them and the conference program at the event website.

All this boundary breaking requires some R&R

My desk is strewn with no fewer than five folders concerning as many different projects. I’m not noticing them as I email and take calls. But, for a moment, I glance down at the paper melee and am struck with how intrinsically interesting I find all of it. I am a watershed planner at HRWC — have been for 12 years –and I am never bored with the breadth and depth of my projects and the work the staff does for the Huron River and its constituents whether webbed, finned or bipedal.

Maybe Maria Carmen Lemos tapped into what I find so stimulating about HRWC and my work, in particular, when she described in a project meeting we had this week the two ways that organizations  (and people, I would add) approach boundaries. Maria Carmen is faculty at the University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources and Environment, and a co-Principal Investigator on climate change research grants in which I am about to be involved.  Given these credentials, and that she’s infectiously energetic, I trust her depiction that organizations are either “boundary-breakers” or “boundary-producers” and that HRWC is most clearly a boundary-breaker.

That’s it. In one way or another, my projects are breaking boundaries –

• The team working on finding a better way to locate and fix failing septic systems is breaking boundaries by testing a new detection method that may give Michigan county health departments a more cost-effective option.
• The one-year stakeholder process I’m leading to create climate resilient communities on a watershed scale will break boundaries by bringing diverse community leaders together to understand the risk management involved with our changing climate in Michigan.

And so it goes with the other projects under my purview. Dynamic. Fulfilling. Demanding.

While HRWC is focused on the watershed boundary, that’s not our sole focus. We have a history of and reputation for breaking boundaries – political, hydrologic, and social – all for the benefit of the river. It’s a good day’s work.

Learn from national, state, and local leaders who are using green and blue infrastructure and low impact development practices to address stormwater management, including the City of Milwaukee, one of three Great Lakes & St. Lawrence cities to be recognized for its contribution to stormwater management through green infrastructure.

What Color is Your Infrastructure?

Friday, September 23, 2011

Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, MI
Cost: $25

For more information, including online registration, speaker information and conference program, please go to www.allianceofdownriverwatersheds.com.

For general inquiries, contact Elizabeth Riggs at eriggs@hrwc.org or 734.769.5123 x608.

This conference has been funded in part through the Michigan Nonpoint Source Program by the US EPA.