Contact City Council
What should you say to city council and others about removing Argo Dam?
City council is expected to decide the fate of Argo Dam in Winter 2009-2010, unless it delays the vote.
The best thing you can do to support Argo Dam removal is to contact city council and talk to your friends and neighbors to let them know what you think.
Letters to council are most effective if they’re in your own words, but you might consider one or more of these points as you write:
- Argo Dam is one of the biggest dams on the most heavily dammed river in southeast Michigan. Removing it will immediately and significantly improve Huron’s health. It will:
- reduce wildly fluctuating flows downstream of the dam (such erratic flows are one of the biggest threats to the Huron),
- reduce the water temperature and evaporation,
- improve habitat for fish and wildlife,
- reduce invasive species,
- improve virtually every important measure of the water’s health: oxygenation, sediment flow, flood storage, and more.
- It won’t make the Huron perfect or pristine, but removing the dam will clearly improve the river.
- Removing Argo Dam is a sound investment.
- It will cost some $300,000 to repair Argo’s toe-drains. In a few years, the dam is also due for a regular maintenance job of $250,000. And all that is on top of $60,000 in annual maintenance and insurance.
- Currently, Argo’s expenses are paid through the city drinking water fund. But because Argo does not provide drinking water, the costs will need to be shifted to the Parks Department, which is already struggling to afford Mack Pool, the Senior Center, and its other facilities.
- Removing Argo is expected to cost about $1 million, but the city estimates that in the long run, removal will cost less.
- Taking out Argo means the city gains 30 acres of parkland, plus a beautiful stretch of river that will attract paddlers and tubers (and their money). Another 28 acres of floodplain will be restored and serve to store excess water and filter pollutants in runoff.
- Outside funding could help defray the cost of removal—that might include federal stimulus money, state environmental funds, even local funds such as Greenbelt money dedicated for use inside city limits.
- Removing Argo would put Ann Arbor on a progressive trend.
- Around the country, more and more cities are taking out their dams. Ann Arbor has a chance to stand among the first cities in Michigan to remove a major dam.
Send an email to city council asking them to remove Argo Dam.
FAST FACT ABOUT THE HURON RIVER: The Huron River Watershed has 98 documented dams making it one of the most heavily dammed rivers in Michigan.
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