Posts Tagged ‘City of Ann Arbor’

Title: Huron River Water Trail Partners Meeting
Location: NEW Center, South Conference Room, 1100 N Main Street, Ann Arbor, MI
Description: Quarterly meeting of the Huron River Water Trail Partners. This meeting will focus on accessibility concerns and solutions for adaptive launches with guest speakers from the Downriver Limb Loss Support Group and KBE Precision Products, regional distributor of the E-Z Dock Launch system; and on the re-design of the website for the Water Trail with The Greenway Collaborative, Inc. Trail Towns Representatives and Partners will share their progress on the Water Trail development.
Start Time: 09:00
Date: 2013-03-05
End Time: 11:30

For the past year and some change, HRWC has been partnering with the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Office, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and the Wolfpack to spark a river renaissance known as RiverUp! Our goal is a vibrant, robust and restored river that’s a destination for residents and tourists.

Learn about the ambitious renaissance underway for the Huron River.

Download the full-color report to read about year one accomplishments and the plans for the next three years:

• Making investments in river recreation with the Huron River Water Trail
• Stimulating local economies and improving the river’s health by remediating legacy pollution sites and locating river-friendly businesses along its shore
• Transforming the river corridor through linkages of hike-bike trails, art trails, natural areas and vital downtowns

Grab a paddle and join us in this boat. There’s room enough for everyone.

Photo: Huron River by Barbara Eckstein.

People are talking and writing about the newly completed portage on the Huron River!

The RiverUp! initiative proudly announces the official re-opening of the portage around Superior Dam. The new portage features a low dock for canoe and kayak take-out, a graded gravel path, and new sheltered launch area in quiet waters. And the rustic black willow bench really ties the portage site together.

The portage improvements are the result of the generous support of Thomas Buhr and John Carver, and coordination and cooperation from St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, City of Ann Arbor, and Superior Township. The portage was officially re-opened recently with a ribbon cutting and champagne toasts. New way-finding signs sporting the Huron River Water Trail logo debuted at the site, as well.

Paddlers, enjoy the new safe and accessible portage. And while you are there, please leave only footprints and clean-up any debris you find to show the good stewardship of the paddling community.

New sign announces the Superior Dam portage.

Check out these stories from Concentrate Media and Ann Arbor.com.

The University of Michigan’s Office of Campus Sustainability has just released its 2011 Annual Sustainability Report.

Covering more than 170 environmental metrics, the report presents the university’s impact on the environment while highlighting examples of stewardship and sustainability efforts taking place throughout the Ann Arbor campus. Highlights from this year’s report include:

• The completion of the Campus Sustainability Integrated Assessment
• An announcement in September by President Mary Sue Coleman of five goals aimed to guide the university’s efforts at reducing environmental impact through the key themes of climate change, waste prevention, healthy environments, and community awareness.
• An 8 percent reduction in energy use and a corresponding utility cost savings of $3.8 million annually in 71 buildings.
• Waste reduction efforts resulting in a 3 percent drop in total waste production and a decrease in per-person trash levels of nearly 4 percent from fiscal year 2010.

Print versions of the report can be obtained by contacting Barbara Hagan.

Participants in the YMCA's Youth Volunteer Corps and their counselors at the Superior portage

We’re grateful for the help of the dedicated group from the YMCA Ann Arbor’s Youth Volunteer Corps who joined HRWC staff to clear a canoe and kayak portage trail. Fourteen hard-working and good-natured youth and their counselors grabbed work gloves and loppers to open up the portage trail at the Superior dam on the Huron River. We were impressed with their tenacity and tolerance for mosquito bites.

We anticipate big changes over the next few months at this work site as a new trail is created, better signage is installed, and the boat landing and launch are improved. Until then, paddlers on the Huron need to be able to portage their boats and the work of the Youth Volunteer Corps will make that possible.

Nuisance algae blooms harm people and wildlife

We did it!

We are celebrating yesterday’s passage of Michigan phosphorus fertilizer legislation that will go a long way toward protecting the Huron River and its lakes and streams from nuisance algae blooms that can result from excess phosphorus entering our freshwaters. The Huron River Watershed Council began advocating for this legislation eight years ago with Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner Janis Bobrin and the City of Ann Arbor. THANK YOU to the bill’s primary sponsor Rep. Terry Brown, and Rep. Rebekah Warren, Chair of the House Great Lakes and Environment Committee, and the state legislators who voted in favor of the legislation 2:1.

The bill will amend Part 85 (Fertilizers) of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act to do the following (partial list):

– Prohibit the use of fertilizer containing available phosphate, beginning January 1, 2012, except to correct a phosphorus deficiency or establish new turf grass, or by trained staff at a golf course, and require the Director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) to approve a training program.

– Establish regulations for the application of any fertilizer near water (a 10 ft buffer will be in effect where no fertilizer can be applied) , as well as the cleaning of a fertilizer spreader.

– Require a person who released fertilizer on an impervious surface to take certain actions, and prohibit the application of fertilizer on frozen or saturated soil.

– Provide that the preemption of local fertilizer ordinances under Part 85 would not apply to an ordinance in effect on the bill’s effective date that regulated or prohibited the application to turf of fertilizer containing available phosphate.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor

Greetings from Baltimore! This is HRWC Watershed Planner, Elizabeth Riggs. I’m fortunate to be talking about HRWC’s work in the Huron River watershed at a conference this week about Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), or pollution reduction diets for rivers, lakes, and bays. More than 100 people from the U.S. and abroad are attending ASABE’s TMDL 2010: Watershed Management to Improve Water Quality. Yesterday, we were greeted by Rich Batiuk with the US EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program and Dr. Bob Summers with the Maryland Department of the Environment.

HRWC has a good deal of experience using this tool of the Clean Water Act to reduce pollution, starting with the TMDL for phosphorus in Ford and Belleville Lakes that spurred creation of the Middle Huron Initiative. Tomorrow morning, I’ll share with the conference attendees the story of that TMDL and HRWC’s efforts to measure impacts on phosphorus levels in relation to the City of Ann Arbor’s manufactured fertilizer ordinance.

While I’m in Baltimore, HRWC’s other watershed planner, Ric Lawson, also is sharing this story with conference attendees in Milwaukee. Check back here for a forthcoming blog from Ric about his experiences.