The Alcona Black River Watershed Advisory Council (ABRWAC) is a volunteer group committed to protecting their watershed and have been working with Huron Pines to become more involved in the protection of this valuable resource.

Huron Pines received a grant from the Community Foundation of Northeast Michigan to arrange a road/stream crossing inventory and a geomorphology stream assessment for the Alcona Black River. The goal of this project was to increase the ABRWAC's and volunteers' levels of resource understanding and to help them make better decisions in the future about their resource.

 Click here to view the 2007 road/stream crossing inventory report.

On May 9th, 2007, Huron Pines staff met with the volunteers at the Alcona Township Hall where they gave a presentation on what affects water quality and trained them how to fill out the data sheets to conduct a road/stream inventory. Once the classroom session was complete, we headed out to the field and went to a few different sites to walk the volunteers through the process. 

The group completed the rest of the inventory in June and provided all the data sheets and pictures of each site to Huron Pines. Huron Pines then tabulated the information and identified the most critical sites to provide BMPs, or Best Management Practices, and cost estimates for the sites that require attention.  Conceptual Designs have been drafted by engineering assistance from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) for one of the sites proposed for improvements.

Volunteers also had the chance to participate in a geomorphology stream assessment that was conducted by the NRCS on September 26th, 2007. The stream assessment was done on the North Branch of the Black River at the Black River Road stream crossing. There was a great turn out for both the road/stream inventory and the geomorphology stream assessment.

The ABRWAC is a fun group to work with—they are eager to learn and enthusiastic about their efforts in protecting this watershed. We would like to thank the Community Foundation for providing the funding to get this project going in the Alcona Black River watershed.

Currently, we are seeking funding to improve road/stream crossing AB18 (see report) that ranked most severe from the inventory.

For more information on this project contact Eric Nelson, Habitat Specialist, at 989-344-0753 ext 31.