Where the Wild River Rolls

Conservation Resource Alliance shares the top items on their to-do list to restore northern Michigan’s waterways and lands

By Anna Faller | June 15, 2024

"We're wild about rivers…and so much more."

That’s the motto of Conservation Resource Alliance (CRA), a “rewilding” nature nonprofit headquartered in Traverse City. Since its formation in 1968, the CRA has expanded across 15 northwest Michigan counties and encompasses a trio of on-the-ground programs—River Care, Wild Roots, and Wild Link—each catered towards restoring natural habitats and improving environmental resilience throughout the Great Lakes and beyond.

“We see ourselves as a resource for partners in our regional community to keep our energy focused on a common set of objectives,” CRA Director Amy Beyer says—that is, preserving the state’s rivers, forests, and lands for many years to come.

River Care

The health of Michigan’s environment is directly related to that of our waters; thus, watershed protection is at the core of everything the CRA does.

If we think about the Great Lakes like a human body, all of its tributaries and streams are like veins and arteries pumping blood. When we cramp those critical movement channels, the body can’t function as well as it should, thereby making it more susceptible to future damage (in the case of our waterways, think of issues like invasive species, climate change, erosion, etc.).

The CRA’s work to remove dams and barriers and restore natural areas acts a lot like preventative medicine. “Every time we complete a project, we’re adding to the ‘body’s’ resilience, and enhancing its ability to fight off whatever comes next,” Beyer says.

Project No. 1: The Pere Marquette Watershed (Pictured)
The first of these endeavors brings us to the Pere Marquette Watershed (PMW), where the CRA has been hard at work on various projects for about 60 years. Recently, the stabilization of a precarious railroad embankment in Baldwin marks a milestone for the nonprofit, both in terms of project completion (the effort’s in its final stages after more than a decade of work), as well as community involvement, headlined by the CRA’s collaboration with multiple local groups and organizations.

“It really took everyone at the table and some very intense engineering,” notes Beyer, “but the most important part, I think, is that we averted disaster.”

The CRA team broke ground on the railroad embankment initiative in late 2023, and since then have successfully safeguarded some 65 miles of river, while also working with local construction crews to reestablish a floodplain bench and bolster fish and wildlife habitats. Revegetation is the final step here, which, per Beyer, is already in the works.

Project No. 2: The Baldwin River Dam
The CRA is drafting plans to remove the decaying Baldwin River Dam, also in the PMW—an especially complex undertaking, which is set to unfold through the next few years.

First constructed in the 1880s, the dam’s several degrading components are not only detrimental to the surrounding river, but also pose a danger to downstream villages, which are at high-water risk. Further, the dam also doubles as a sea lamprey barrier, an issue which requires a more engineered and seasonal structure to adequately solve.

In response, the CRA and its project partners (including The Great Lakes Fishery Commission, AECOM infrastructure consulting firm, and landowner Jim Truxton, among many others) are working toward removing the dam and all of its related pieces, thereby reestablishing river connectivity and a stable floodplain, to boot. Designs for a new channel alignment are already in play as of early this year, with final construction funds and scope of work outlined as next steps.

Project No. 3: The Jordan River Watershed
The largest tributary of Lake Charlevoix, the Jordan River was the first to be designated “natural and scenic” via the State of Michigan’s Natural Rivers Act (1972). Prior to 2020, though, its undersized road infrastructure was creating fish passage barriers and encouraging riverbed trouble like erosion and excess sedimentation.

To address these issues, the CRA’s plan, which got the funding go-ahead that year, involves replacing the final pair of inadequate culverts on the river’s mainstem with a series of clear-spanning bridges, as well as significant reconstruction of the road-crossing over nearby Deer Creek. It also marks the CRA’s first concurrent design and assembly of three major crossings.

As of a project update in late May, designs for the bridges are finished and construction bids have been accepted. From there, it’s all about ground break, which is on the calendar for later this summer.

Project No. 4: The Crystal River Watershed 
Next up on the CRA’s map of River Care projects is the Crystal River. This waterway, which is a focal point of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, is a premier destination for outdoor enthusiasts and sees about 15,000 annual visitors.

Its aging infrastructure, however, poses a number of hazards. For starters, three stream-crossing structures have rendered parts of the river impassable, forcing boaters to “portage” their crafts across the busy County Road 675.

The stream-crossings are also undersized, which not only disrupts the river’s in-stream habitat and natural flow of debris, but also puts the above transportation system at risk during high-water events.

Together with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB), the CRA aims to renovate four Crystal River crossings, the first of which was installed in fall 2023 at the Tucker Lake Outlet. The project’s remaining stages, which are scheduled for completion by 2025, will restore the last three sites with free-spanning infrastructure and connect the stretch of river to Lake Michigan.

Project No. 5: The Stony Creek Watershed and Marshville Dam
Also on the bill for 2024 is a comprehensive restoration project in the Stony Creek Watershed (Oceana County). This initiative—which includes both private lands, as well as a site in Marshville Dam County Park—aims to increase widespread access to the uniquely-cold Stony Creek, while also improving wildlife habitats and restoring the waterway’s composition.

The action got underway in May, with the reconstruction of the stream’s outdated road-crossing as the first order of business. From there, the CRA, along with co-project leader West Michigan Regional Shoreline Development Commission, plans to address a series of undersized culverts, which will be replaced with a full-spanning timber bridge.

Other project highlights include removal of the Marshville Dam, which will fully liberate this section of river for the first time in more than a century, as well as the installation of a public fishing platform.

Project No. 6: The Maple River
Of the CRA’s recently-completed River Care work, a 25-year project on the Maple River (Pellston) is a highlight.

That seemingly-impossible goal reconnected more than 50 miles of river—a milestone for the CRA, and the first time in U.S. history that a major river was freed from stem to stern. The peak of this years-long project was the removal of the Lake Kathleen Dam, a disastrous barrier that stifled the native trout population and corroded the riverbed, among other detriments.

Though the bulk of this initiative is in what Beyer calls the “celebration” phase, she also stresses that the CRA’s work in the Maple River is far from complete.

“When we finish such an effort, we don’t just leave that watershed and that community in the rearview mirror,” she notes. Instead, the CRA is gearing up for at least another decade of action in the Maple’s connecting tributaries, along with reforestation efforts and upkeep of local wildlife habitats.

Wild Roots

The second of the CRA’s programs, Wild Roots, was piloted in 2019—and has since become permanent—as a link between local communities and bolstering Michigan’s ecosystems through native species reforestation.

Project No. 7: Planting Native Trees and Shrubs
Though planting trees might sound easy enough, Beyer underscores that doing so on a large-scale can be a difficult ask. Consequently, the CRA’s primary role in this program is to connect its participants to the tools and resources they need to ensure they meet their conservation goals.

These efforts include dispersal of sapling protection (aka “tree tubes”), reforesting public and private lands, and exploring alternate species to replace sections of woods lost to the pesky Emerald Ash Borer. And boy, is it working! In the years since the program first launched, Wild Roots has serviced 20 counties, involved more than 400 landowners and volunteers, and planted a staggering 115,000 trees.

Project No. 8: Forests to MI Faucets
Also under the Wild Roots umbrella is a CRA partnership with Forests to MI Faucets. This Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) initiative involves 19 other conservation partners, all of whom share the goal of protecting our drinking water by increasing forested land.

Studies have shown that watersheds with more trees generally have better water quality, as permanent vegetation helps mitigate elements like runoff control, shade cover, and reduction of sediments and toxins.

Traverse City’s updated Source Water Protection Plan is next on the docket here, says Beyer, wherein the CRA will help tailor next steps to ensure local water quality and protections.

“We’re working with different partners, including the DNR and The Watershed Center [Grand Traverse Bay], to make sure that the forest protection part of that strategy is included in that plan,” she says.

Wild Link

The third and final branch of the CRA’s programming is called Wild Link. This is an expert-driven management program, wherein landowners connect with the CRA’s team to learn about wildlife-friendly practices and help spread conservation knowledge.

Of course, all those properties are connected via watershed. “That’s why we call it Wild Link,” Beyer says, “because it helps build these giant corridors of healthy habitats.”

Forging connections between publicly-owned and protected land is critical from an ecological standpoint, Beyer says, because it ensures the movement of wildlife, access to food and cover, and large-scale reproduction.

“The notion with this program is that landowners can count on us for voluntary management, while also meeting larger productivity goals,” she adds.

For more information on Conservation Resource Alliance, visit rivercare.org.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of the article said that the Crystal River Watershed flowed into Lake Huron. The correct body of water is Lake Michigan.