GLFT Grant Library

The Pigeon River is a cold water stream located in Ottawa County, Michigan. This river has a history of fluctuating water quality due to sedimentation, nutrient loading, and hydrologic instability due to drainage conditions. This project seeks to conduct an inventory of the condition of all road stream crossings, and a stream habitat assessment at key locations within the watershed. This work will help identify areas of concern and facilitate planning for future restoration efforts.

The Conservation Resource Alliance is expanding it's holistic approach to watershed management by completing a road/stream crossing inventory on the Lincoln River Watershed. CRA is also working with project partners at the Mason-Lake Conservation District to stabilize the single largest stream-bank erosion site in the entire Pere Marquette Watershed the Chinnery Log/slide, while simultaneously restoring complete connectivity to Blood Creek an intact headwaters and wetland complex valued for its pristine aquatic habitat.

The Nature Conservancy requests GLFT funding for fee acquisition of 1,384 acres on the North Point Peninsula near Alpena, including over four miles of Lake Huron coastline. In providing a unique opportunity to preserve and protect a rare mixture of ecological, economic, recreational and educational values in one project, this acquisition achieves the GLFT priorities of preserving essential habitat, particularly important fish habitats, with a possible opportunity to increase their availability to the public.

Reconnecting the North Branch of the Platte River is a comprehensive effort to replace outdated crossings at the prioritized sites of #PLT-P3, P5, P10 on the largest, high quality tributary to the Platte mainstem. Partners have completed site surveys and are well underway with design, proposing to build a timber bridge, bottomless arch and recessed culvert to ensure natural channel conditions and provide passage for all aquatic species at all life stages and stream flows.

This project will improve natural stream function and in-stream habitat on a 5,400-foot section of Kids Creek with the overall goal of removing it from the State of Michigan's Impaired Waters List. Project will install woody debris and riffle-pool enhancements, connect the stream to its floodplain, replace a culvert restricting hydrologic flow, and narrow the stream channel using natural, bioengineering techniques, all of which will benefit desirable macroinvertebrate species as well as Brook Trout populations.

Trout Unlimited, Inc. is looking to restore aquatic organism passage and stream function at three road/stream crossings as the first phase of an effort to restore complete connectivity throughout the Bigelow Creek watershed, a critically important coldwater tributary to the Muskegon River. The replacement of these crossings will enhance and provide long-term protection for fish passage and habitat for salmonids and other coldwater species of the Lake Michigan Basin.

We will evaluate the source-specific production of steelhead to the Lake Michigan fishery. We have demonstrated that chemical signatures of juvenile steelhead otoliths are sufficiently differentiable among different Lake Michigan tributaries and hatcheries to support accurate natal origin assignment. Here, otoliths of adult steelhead will be collected and analyzed to quantitatively assess the mixing of stocks in the Lake Michigan fishery and identify specific sources most supportive of steelhead production.

We will improve assessment of trends for lake trout populations and estimates of vital rates in Lake Michigan by fitting age-structured assessment models in southern and western areas of the lake where such assessments are lacking. We will combine results with those from other areas of the lake to provide a lake-wide assessment. Results will be used to develop or improve forecasting models to evaluate consequences of stocking decisions on rehabilitation status and predator-prey balance.