Grants: Water Resources

Great Lakes Bay Regional Solar Energy Initiative

This project requests WIN support of a project of the Great Lakes Bay Economic Development Partnership (GLBEDP). The effort, the Solar Energy Initiative, involves the cooperation of the three regional economic development in a united effort to establish the Great Lakes Bay Region as a “hub” for solar energy business development. Specifically, the GLBEDP is requesting funding to support marketing and communication, the development of “shovel-ready” sites, and local education and mobilization. These activities are specific recommendations of analysis completed by consultants in 2008.

Setting the stage for the future of the Shiawassee Flats

This project requests funding to support the development of a hydrogeomorphic analysis of the Shiawassee Flats area – a 40,000 acre area in Saginaw County. The purpose of the project is two-fold: determine the historical (pre-settlement) land use in the flats to help determine the direction and potential success of future restoration activities, and to support decision making as it relates to the economic efficiency of activities at the flats

Cedar River Land Registry Program

Midland’s Little Forks Conservancy proposes to create a unique land registry program in Clare and Gladwin County’s Cedar River Watershed. Over the past 4 years, Little Forks has been working to acquire land and conservation easements in the Cedar River Watershed to protect the water quality of one of the Saginaw Bay Watershed’s few cold water trout-streams. The registry program will provide an opportunity for land-owners, who may not be ready for permanent land conservation to join others in a voluntary program. This registry will then allow the conservancy to keep track of these properties, and be first in line should the property owners move toward more permanent conservation.

Assessment of WIN-supported Fish Passage Projects

This project proposes to implement applied research at the site of the proposed fish passage project at

Frankenmuth. While these fish passage projects have been implemented in several areas across the Great
Lakes, this site will represent only the third time that the application of the “rock ramp” passage technique
has been used in Michigan and will be the largest project of its kind in the Great Lakes. To that end, this
project provides a unique and important opportunity to look at this effort from a pre-rock-ramp and post-rockramp
perspective. This WIN investment will support the on-the-ground analysis of how well these structures
pass fish, as well as provide early data on the success of fish spawning activity above the dam. The project
will also engage the public through presentations by Central Michigan University researchers on the
importance of fish passage projects as well as provide important data to decision makers throughout the
region about the effectiveness of these projects. As an added piece of the project, researchers will asses
some basic qualitative economic information from the community of Frankenmuth about the public
satisfaction with the project. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service will be joining CMU on this project and providing staff and financial support as available.

Saginaw Bay WIN “Green Village” at the Tall Ships Celebration

The 2010 Tall Ship Celebration in Bay City marks the only Michigan stop of the Tall Ship Challenge in 2010.

Anticipating more than 100,000 people coming to visit the event, an economic impact of over $10 million is
anticipated during the course of the fleet’s stay in Bay City. The “Green Village” will be a new, but important,
feature at the event and will give visitors a chance to experience eco-friendly products, services, and ideas
that they can use long after the event. Attendees will learn about what local companies and organizations
are doing to make our region more sustainable.

Cass River Greenways Project

The Cass River Greenways Committee is working on many implementation projects based, in large part, on

the WIN-funded “Vision of Green” report from 2003. One of those projects includes the development of a
“water trail” and access sites along the Cass River at Vassar, Tuscola Township, and the City of
Frankenmuth. These access sites will be on public property and will provide parking, restrooms, picnic
facilities, and interpretive and wayfinding signage. All three communities have been working together to
develop the plans for the water trail.

Spray Park with Rain Garden

This project, sponsored by the Friends of Bay City State Recreation Area, intends to fund the development

of a rain garden associated with the construction of a spray park at Bay City State Recreation Area. The
rain garden will use discharge water from the spray park and will filter this water before it is discharged. In
addition, the rain garden will provide an educational element for the visitors at the spray park. The spray
park will be located within the Bay City State Recreation Area, adjacent to the “Come Play by the Bay”
community-built playground.

Shiawassee River Resoration and Chesaning Dam Removal Project

The Chesaning Dam was identified in the 2003 WIN Fisheries Scoping Study and the subsequent WIN2005

Low Head Barrier Analysis as a critical impoundment inhibiting fish passage in the Saginaw River system.
Like the Frankenmuth Dam, the Chesaning project opens river and makes native spawning areas available
to fish that have been compromised since the late 1800s. Fish passage at Chesaning will open 37 miles of
stream habitat – with native walleye and sturgeon being the targeted fish for restoration at this location.
Chesaning recently received a $900,000 grant from the State of Michigan to match the WIN funding to assist
this $1.4 million project.

Saginaw Bay Environmental Education Center

This project, sponsored by BaySail, will fund the development of a zero stormwater runoff facility as a permanent home for the Appledore Schooners. The main features of the project are a 2500 sq ft intensive green roof, a porous concrete and previous grass school bus irrigation system, and native species landscaping.

Creating a Sustainable Region through an Investment in Children

This project, proposed by the new Mid-Michigan Children’s Museum, requested funding to assist with the construction of the exhibit space component of the museum. In particular, the request was for exhibits that most closely align with WIN’s mission and objectives: Water, Water, Everwhere, Aunt Sugar’s Farm and Night ‘n’ Day. It was the desire of the Museum to incorporate “sustainable’ concepts into the displays as much as possible. They also invited Win representatives to assist in the development of the education programming that will be an integral part of the museum’s operations.

Hampton School Rain Garden

Students at Bay City’s Hampton Elementary have developed a “rain garden” on low lying property at their elementary school. Designed to reduce runoff from the school grounds, as well as filter pollutants from the water, the rain garden will serve as an important demonstration of on-site water quality management and green development in a very visible location. A local architect and a landscape architecture firm consulted on this project.

Arenac Conservation District “Tree for a Tire Day”

The Arenac County Conservation District proposed a tire recycling day. There was no active tire recycling program in the County and old tires were typically burned, stacked up in back yards, or disposed of on state land. The District traded a tree seedling for each tire that was delivered to the recycling site. The goal was to recycle 2,050 tires. WIN funding supported the charges associated with trailers that will be used to transport the tires to First Class Tire Shredders Inc.