The Alpena News

By: Patty Ramus

Stream crossings affecting habitats in the Pine River-Van Etten Lake Watershed area will see improvements with upcoming projects being funded by economic stimulus dollars.

On Tuesday Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., announced Michigan has been awarded more than $7,386,000 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The money will be used to improve water quality and fish habitats, maintain Forest Service roads and for other enhancements.

The Forest Service has partnered with the Huron Pines Resource Conservation and Development Council and the Alcona County Road Commission to address stream crossings within parts of the watershed in Alcona County. The partners have $1 million in stimulus funds to conduct the projects.

According to Bob Stuber, Forest Service fisheries biologist for the Huron-Manistee National Forest, the three entities are going to improve five or six road stream crossings in the system with actual implementation being through a partnership between them.

"Huron Pines will seek additional funding through other funding sources. Alcona County (Road Commission) will contribute in-kind labor and equipment use," he said. "It is hoped to create a number of jobs through these projects, both at the engineering design phase as well as the actual construction phase. Besides jobs, the projects will improve transportation safety, decrease sediment delivery, and improve fish passage in the Pine River system."

The watershed is 187,000 acres and includes much of Alcona County, eventually draining to Van Etten Lake in Iosco County. One of the major pollutants in the watershed is sediment. Excessive sedimentation changes the river channel, ruins the natural habitat and then leads to additional problems downstream. Unnatural sources of sediment input include some stream bank sites where vegetation has been removed, recreational access sites, new construction and river/stream crossings, said Brad Jensen, Huron Pines executive director.

"Many road-stream crossings are typically the largest source of excessive sediment entering the rivers in northern Michigan. If you address the source of water quality problems, you are able to get the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to long-term improvement of water quality," he said. "This isn't a problem that is really anyone's fault, it's more a case of small back roads that have had more and more use of the years and now are eroding into streams."

Sediment also can smother fish eggs, fill riffle areas and damage fish spawning areas. The projects will help fish species including trout and channel darter, Stuber said.

Jensen said Huron Pines, other agencies and local volunteers have worked for the past 10 years to develop a comprehensive watershed management plan and implement projects to improve water quality. The watershed planning process involved identifying sources of polluted runoff and coming up with solutions to address those sources. Stuber said this planning put the area in a good position to receive stimulus dollars for the improvement projects.

The road commission and Forest Service have looked at a number of road stream crossings primarily in Millen and Mikado townships, but the specific locations where projects will be done haven't been determined. The road commission will meet with Forest Service and Huron Pines staff this week to go over further details, said Ron Young, road commission engineer-manager.

"Some of them are what I would call structurally deficient. Some that are what I would call hydraulically deficient which means that they're not big enough to handle the routine flow we get with the stream," he said.

Young said some improvements may get done this year but the projects will take time to put together.