Boardman River Dam Removal and Upgrade
It is called the "largest dam removal and watershed restoration project in Michigan's history" and before it gets started there is paperwork to be filed.
The Record-Eagle has this update:
Local officials approved plans to remove three former hydroelectric dams on the river — Brown Bridge Dam owned by Traverse City, and Sabin and Boardman dams owned by Grand Traverse County. The decisions came early this year after a multi-year public study by the Boardman River Dams Committee wrapped at the end of 2008.
"There will probably be nothing on the ground for a year and a half," said Nate Winkler, a biologist and project manager for Conservation Resource Alliance, a Traverse City nonprofit group contracted to manage the three dam removals, modifications to Union Street Dam and watershed restoration efforts.
The project was denied $7.5 million in federal stimulus funding and currently has about $685,000 in pending grant applications. It's going to take a lot more money than that and officials will spend the coming months applying for additional grants, Winkler said.
And the R-E is reporting that the Traverse City Commission may seek help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:
They will consider whether to authorize City Manager R. Ben Bifoss to send a letter asking the corps to complete a feasibility study and formulate a plan to remove Brown Bridge Dam and modify Union Street Dam, efforts to restore fish and wildlife habitat, improve degraded water quality and restore natural flow regimes.
Click here to read the project update and here for the TC Commission meeting (for Jan. 4).
Follow the Grand Vision on Twitter!
Photo: Boardman Thaw by ETCphoto.
I don't believe that the Brown Bridge dam should be removed…we need that nature area to stay as it is…thank you
Brown Bridge Pond is a little piece of wilderness in the middle of the suburbs of Traverse City. It's pretty tragic to remove that dam. The three dams are talked about as if they are all the same. Brown Bridge Pond is a different situation entirely. It is a beautiful body of water surrounded by two square miles of nature preserve.
I totally agree, Brown Bridge Pond is a gem; used and appreciated by many.
Yes, Brown Bridge is special. So is Boardman Pond to the people who live around it and those who use it. Sabin Pond is the back drop to the Nature Center and current home to 26 swans. All the dams should stay and generate electricity which will pay for their future maintenance.
I can't get my mind wrapped around the notion that a dam or a man-made pond are some kind of natural assets that should be preserved. The real natural asset is the river, and I hope it will be restored to its natural state. Then we'll actually see what God or Mother Nature intended the stream to be.
It will be a great thing when the dams on the Boardman are all gone.