GLFT Grant Library

Freshwater is Michigan’s lifeblood – its greatest resource. The need for meaningful engagement and public awareness surrounding the protection and enjoyment of freshwater is not a new development. MUCC sees a pressing need to improve public awareness surrounding the benefits and threats to the resource and its fisheries.

Through hands-on stewardship projects and learn to fish events, MUCC will directly educate youth and their families about the importance of the Great Lakes and its fisheries.

This project will construct a timber bridge replacing an undersized culvert connecting 30 miles of North Branch Boardman River to the 20 miles of the newly restored and connected Boardman River mainstem. A diverse fishery of brook trout, brown trout, and other nonsalmonid predatory species will have access to spring fed habitat types in the North Branch that are not found lower in system improving resiliency for cold water species and productivity for the fishery.

This project on the Dowagiac River restores natural river processes and significantly benefits fisheries in the Great Lakes Basin. In the southeastern Lake Michigan Basin, there is no comparable cold water river system of this size with its rare high gradient habitat. The riffle and habitat boulders will provide grade control and long-term stability of the river profile, provide spawning material for fish, habitat for macroinvertebrates and slow water pockets for migrating fish to rest.

The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians (“Pokagon Band”) seeks to restore historic meanders to the Dowagiac River, which was dredged, straightened, and disconnected from its floodplain in the early 1900’s. Meanders restoration will increase the system’s resiliency, reduce turbidity, increase wetland acreage, and create more functional in-stream habitat. The restoration will benefit multiple species, including potamodromous fish, turtles, and waterfowl, and allow tribal citizens to fish from tribal properties for salmonid and non-salmonid migratory fish.

Stony Creek, a third order coldwater stream located in Oceana County, Michigan, is a tributary connected directly (with the exception of Marshville Dam) to Lake Michigan at the lake’s midpoint. The project goal is intended to ameliorate the negative effects of excess sediment bedload, an undersized road/stream crossing, and the presence of a small dam.

Inland Seas Education Association (ISEA) will implement year-round stewardship education programs utilizing a newly renovated dorm facility, expanding the organization’s engagement potential beyond what has been limited to a six-month sailing season. Funding is already in place for developing the structure and content of programs, and grant funding from GLFT will allow ISEA to execute pilot programs over the course of 2022-23 and evaluate for long-term success.

Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council will continue to foster millennial stewards in Northern Michigan by providing high school students with place-based, hands-on water resources education experiences through the Watershed Academy program. The proposed grant will allow the Watershed Council to continue to offer this program to students in our service area. It will also allow Watershed Council staff to update the program to make the program available to students and teachers during COVID-19.

This project seeks to increase awareness and understanding of the ecology of the Great Lakes in two ways. First, through hands-on experiences that teach youth stewardship and leadership skills; and Second, by installing a permanent watershed exhibit at the SEEDS Eco-Learning Center in Traverse City. These opportunities will support long-term sustainability of the Great Lakes through increased understanding of the general public, and by encouraging action and community engagement.

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Trout Unlimited will inspire the next generation of Great Lakes stewards by engaging Kentwood and Grandville Public School students through watershed education, fly fishing, and stewardship. Students will explore their local trout stream, learn to cast a fly rod and tie flies, and plan and implement stewardship projects, thus granting students the knowledge, tools, and community to become thoughtful recreators and impactful stewards of the Great Lakes.

Nurturing Stewardship through Peer Mentoring will partner Hope College students with local K-12 students to engage in hands-on stewardship projects. College students will expand their leadership skills and commitment to stewardship while mentoring younger students in place-based education projects and cultivating the youth’s lifelong passions for the environment. The mutual support of these students by ExploreHope Academic Outreach and the Office of Sustainability creates a powerfully effective means to engage students throughout their learning.

The Grand Rapids Public Museum will build on its successful school-based watershed programming to develop public programs that engage the community and promote stewardship. The Museum’s Camp Curious and public programs will be expanded to include additional sessions and the Sturgeon Excursion, a Museum game/learning platform, which will be adapted and offered to general Museum visitors and has the potential to reach over 250,000 people annually.

The Detroit Leadership and Environmental Education Program builds the next generation of Great Lakes environmental and conservation leaders and stewards from frontline communities most impacted by environmental racism. Through a combination of watershed citizen science, an ecological educational curriculum, career mentorship, and outdoor experiences like fishing, camping, hiking and foraging we work with Detroit high school students to foster the deep, passionate relationships with the Great Lakes that fuel a lifetime of leadership.

The timeline for the Brandon Road project has been pushed back by the pandemic. Therefore, National Wildlife Federation and our partners seek a one-year renewal at a lower level to finish the job. Specifically, we will enhance our successful Asian carp communications campaign to finalize the implementation of the Brandon Road project (Project). To do so, we will: 1) Launch new and inspiring communications that bolster momentum; 2) Deploy strategic communications that ‘nationalize’ our efforts to stop the further spread of Asian carp; and 3) Leverage and expand our partnerships with stakeholders in the Ohio and Mississippi River Basins by supporting control and eradication strategies. Keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes remains our number one priority. In order to protect the Great Lakes from Asian carp, our nationalization strategy will continue to expand our work into non-Great Lakes regions to build the necessary support that ultimately will lead to implementing the Brandon Road project.

The Flint River Watershed Coalition, along with the Uptown Reinvestment Corporation, will build access on the Flint River in downtown Flint. This stretch of river is valued for its walleye, bass, pike and pan fish fisheries, all of which are underutilized due to limited safe access. The site also will provide invaluable connections to the existing accessible river access site 2.2 miles downstream as well as access and river improvements underway upstream through downtown Flint.

The Grand Rapids Public Museum is re-imagining the role of a public museum. Located on the banks of the Grand River, the Museum will design a welcoming and universally accessible outdoor space that provides educational and recreational opportunities for interaction with the river. Anglers will have safe and well marked access to the fishery from created terraces and pathways. This phase of the project, and focus of proposal, will include finalizing schematic and engineering drawings.

The Discovery Center is starting a multi-phase project to transform an old city-owned coal dock into a recreational amenity. This project will greatly enhance public fishing access by creating universally accessible parking and pedestrian access to the east wall of the pier where sheeting piling will be modified to withstand higher water levels and railing with rod holders will be installed. All features will be designed and constructed using universal access principles.

Development of two universally accessible fishing platforms and amenities at Homestead Township’s new 52-acre Platte River Park with over 1,550 feet of river access. These platforms will provide outstanding access for people of all ages, needs and abilities to fish for migratory Great Lakes species, including coho salmon and steelhead trout and learn about the fish, flora and fauna in and along the river and Great Lakes as well as the importance of environmental stewardship.

We propose to construct, install, and commission a programmable, full width, 3-axis data carriage at the FishPass Project located on the Boardman River, Traverse City, MI (http://www.glfc.org/fishpass.php).  The carriage will facilitate rapid and consistent collection of environmental data in support of selective fish passage research coordinated by the FishPass Advisory Board.  The carriage will be custom fabricated and outfitted with numerous environmental (e.g., velocity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH) and fish movement (e.g., sonar, telemetry) sensors.

The Pere Marquette is a Blue Ribbon Trout Stream and a popular fishery for steelhead, salmon, brook and brown trout. The mainstem has a severely eroding streambank 350' long partially within a railroad right-of-way that has been continuously slumping the last 10 years. Conservation Resource Alliance, PM Watershed Council, PM Trout Unlimited and AECOM are in the final design phase working towards stabilizing this site with fieldstone, plantings, large wood habitat, and floodplain bench restoration.

The proposed project is intended to restore habitat for aquatic biota, especially salmonid, in a reach of the Little Manistee River to a more natural, historic condition utilizing large wood and other natural materials. The proposed work is consistent with the work the Conservation Resource Alliance (CRA) has accomplished in its 50 year history in rivers of northwest Lower Michigan.

CRA and partners, using tried and true decision policy tools, will design and permit the last two improperly sized and deteriorating road stream crossings on the mainstem of the Jordan River at Jordan River Road, sites #WA-3 and #WA-5, to build on past restoration successes and optimize habitat for a diverse community of aquatic life including naturally reproducing Great Lakes salmonids and non-salmonid predator game species.