.
| Introduction
|
| New Projects | How
to Get Involved |
| Ongoing Projects |
| Stream Improvement | Large
Woody Debris | Dam Relicensing | Camp
Grayling Oversight |
| Rapid Response Tree Recovery | Annual
River Clean-Up | Construction Projects
|
| Past Project Activity |
| Catch and Release Regulations |
Oil and Gas Oversight | Telemetry
| Grant Applications |
| Canoe Impact Study | Water
Quality Studies | River Patrols | Commemorative
Flies |
The Anglers have not been known as a fraternal organization. While we do hold an annual membership meeting (usually inconjunction with the Annual River Clean-Up), we prefer to put our membership dues to work via projects as well as our nationally recognized newsletter, The Riverwatch. Since 1987, the Anglers has embarked on over 90 projects—from small and simple investigations to large ambitious efforts such as the helicopter tree drop. As the chart below illustrates, significant funds over the last decade have been invested in three areas: Instream Improvements, Conservation and Research.
This section will give you a thumbnail sketch of the numerous projects we have ongoing, as well as some of more noteworthy projects of the past.
Several new projects have been launched in the last year:
We look forward to adding to this list for 2001.
"Getting involved" means different things to different people. To some, it means chipping in at a large event—serving food, organizing a meeting agenda, manning a booth, cleaning up the river; to others, it may mean conceiving an idea, organizing a project, then running with the ball and delivering the goods.To us, it means those two examples and everything in between. We're fortunate to attract people from all walks of life with diverse but valuable skill sets who are willing to devote some time to make a difference.
Getting involved with the Anglers is as easy as dropping an email to Dan Drislane at ddrislane@globalbiz.net. Let us know what you're interested in doing and we'll see how we can do it together. And if you haven't a clue what you want to do but still want to help, we'll let you know the scoop on what's hot and how you can throw your hat in the ring!
[To learn more about volunteering...]
Since the Anglers' inception in 1987, stream improvement has been a priority. From 1988 to early 1995, the Anglers along with other organizations such as the Paul Young Chapter of Trout Unlimited sponsored more than a dozen stream improvement and bank stabilization projects. Working with the DNR and Mainstream Resources, an environmental engineering/construction firm owned by Anglers member Dave Cozad, the Anglers were instrumental in restoring numerous sites along the Au Sable's three branches, including canoe landings at Chase Bridge and below Wakeley Bridge; sand trap renewal/maintenance; and several bank stabilization projects, such as the site at Upper High Banks on the South Branch.
In the summer of 1995, the Anglers began working with the Au Sable River Watershed Restoration Committee to complete restoration of 29 soil erosion sites. Also, Anglers helped fund over 400 stream repairs/restoration of instream fish structure and habitat enhancement. A year later, the first Large Woody Debris project was begun (see below).
In 1997, the Anglers along with the Huron Pines RC&D and other organizations helped co-fund a three-man work team to restore the hundreds of instream fish structure on the Au Sable's main branch. Over the years, due to weather, currents and canoe collisions, the structures' viability is compromised and in some instances they break apart. Focusing on the most debilitated cover, the team did the backbreaking chore of rebuilding or re-anchoring 350 structures that first year. The crews were brought back in '98 and '99 for similar work on the Au Sable's North Branch, South Branch and a stretch of the Manistee.
Since 1988, the Anglers have invested almost $120,000 in instream improvement of nearly 800 sites along the Au Sable and Manistee Rivers. We will continue to promote stream improvement as a central mission for the Anglers.
Most people when hearing the term large woody debris for the first time simply want to know what it is. Large woody debris is no mystery; it simply refers to the permanent/semi-permanent wood structure that inhabits a riparian zone. Large woody debris—typically represented by downed trees, root tangles, sunken logs—helps stabilize stream banks and stream bed; helps promote insect reproduction by providing cover and a food source; provides trout cover; aids in temperature regulation by providing shade; and generally adds to the vegetal makeup of the river.
Before the Au Sable region was logged, before the river was used as a transportation system for logs, and before the river was considered a sports fishery, large woody debris was a natural phenomenon. Most rivers in Michigan were choked with deadfalls, tangles and brushy growth. But with development of the Au Sable as a fishery and recreational resource, one the river's natural protective features was largely stripped away by either well-meaning landowners or by general ignorance.
The Large Woody Debris Program is an ongoing coordinated effort between the Huron Pines RC&D, the Anglers and several other sponsoring organizations. The idea is simple: spend money to repopulate or enhance the Au Sable and Manistee Rivers with large trees that can be anchored into the stream bed or adjacent to the stream bank. During the last couple of years, the Anglers have helped co-fund helicopter tree drops (for those stretches that are inaccessible by truck). Last October, over 50 trees were dropped along the North Branch. The Large Woody Debris project continues to be a cost-effective conservation tactic to help stabilize band and stream structure and maintain trout spawning habitat. For more information, visit Huron Pines RC&D.
[Read the late George Alexander's
excellent article on the subject,
Large
Woody Debris, in The Riverwatch - Issue #20]
The relicensing of six hydroelectric
dams on the Au Sable River and five additional rivers in Michigan has been of
significant importance to the Anglers. In 1992, the Anglers joined the Michigan
Hydro Relicensing Coalition to intervene in the process of relicensing dams
in Michigan. Major areas of involvement include review and response to the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission’s draft of the Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) and review of the fisheries assessments and river plans for the Au Sable,
Huron, Manistee and Muskegon Rivers.
This activity, quite time-consuming and voluminous, requires significant operating expenses for photocopying, postage, travel, salaries, office rent and other miscellaneous expenses. The Anglers has pledged $2,000 thus far, but more funds are needed.
The Michigan effort
to promote the environmental agenda during the FERC relicensing process—an
activity which only takes place every 30 years—is being viewed nationwide
as a model of organized environmental response and oversight. What is
decided in the next year with regard to the AuSable’s hydroelectric dams
will have an effect for the next quarter century. We view this endeavor as a
priority of the Anglers.
The National Guard continues to push for expanded use of Camp Grayling. Since 1987, the Anglers have challenged the Michigan National Guard on numerous fronts, centered primarily on the Guard's use of Camp Grayling as a training center for its battallions—in addition to Guard ground units from 12 other states, air wings from other Guard units, and even air force units from NATO countries. Though there is a long legacy of battles with Camp Grayling, the issues of most concern with the Anglers are: increased training and its resultant impacts on quality of life and the environment; noice pollution from tank and aircraft firing; Guard use of stream crossings; and potential ground water pollution from spent and unspent ordinance as well as other sources.
The deployment of a Multiple Launch Rocket System battalion as well as resumption of live artillery training, in addition to increased use of the Aerial Bombing Range (Range 40), continue to threaten the fragile environmental ecosystem of the Au Sable’s headwaters. Preliminary environmental studies of Range 40 have indicated that significant soil, sediment and groundwater contamination may have occurred. The DNR has ordered additional testing of the Camp’s other ranges as well as a remediation plan for Range 40. Much work is to be done.
As long as Camp Grayling operates and perhaps even after it is closed (if ever), the Anglers will require significant sustaining funds to maintain effective intervention in the Camp’s activities.
[Read the Detroit News coverage on the subject. Director Ed McGlinn is quoted.]
[See articles relating to Camp Grayling.]
This project was founded by member Bernie Fowler and a former Anglers director, the late George Alexander. A fancy name for a practical activity, Rapid Response Tree Recovery was essentially two crazy conservationists taking off at a moment's notice to "save" a fallen tree. When a tree falls into one of the Au Sable three branches, unless the "deadfall" is tended to, it can become slave to the river's willy nilly currents or the victim to an uncompromising chain saw. Prior to Fowler and Alexander undertaking this project, deadfalls over the river were often buzz-sawed away with no thought to the tree's added value as cover and as a stabilizing instrument for the river bank. This was further exacerbated in the spring, when some of the area's canoe liveries cruised the rivers (before the throngs of canoe renters) cutting and chopping the dead falls from winter.
Beginning in 1994, George and Bernie beat the liveries to it by running the branches in an Au Sable traditional riverboat, complete with chain saw and cabling, and clearing the winter season's deadfalls and using them for trout cover and erosion fighters. They expanded this activity to run year-round. When a fallen tree was reported, off went the Rapid Response Team in pursuit of new trout habitat and bank stabilization. The program has been so successful that most liveries are cooperating and notifying the team as needed.
With George Alexander's death in February 2000, Bernie Fowler continues this pursuit alone. In the summer of 2000, the Anglers approved purchase of a new chainsaw for Bernie to use on subsequent Recovery runs.
Care to wade your favorite river for a day? The Anglers of the Au Sable are once again sponsoring the Fall Clean-Up of the Au Sable. The clean-up, held the last seven years, has been a rousing success and we are looking forward to expanding next year’s event. Come each September, we will be looking for three man teams to physically walk each section of stream, picking up refuse left from the long commercial canoeing season. Teams will meet at Gates at 9:00 A.M. where river assignments, trash bags and Rusty’s innovative “poking sticks” will be passed out. The plan is to wade your assigned section of river and fill up several bags, which you’ll set aside on a log jam to be picked up by riverboat crews coming down after you. The boats will also be used to access difficult sections of the river.
The hull of a small speedboat
is lodged under a sweeper along the South
Branch of the Au Sable. Crews from Clean-Up '97 dislodged this from
the rover's currents.
You should be able to walk your section in two to three hours, leaving plenty of time to fish during the peak part of the day. We’ll also have refreshments and appetizers at the Lodge after 4:00 P.M. so plan on dropping back in to see how well you and your team did. We hope you can make this worthwhile event.
[For more info, click here.]
In its fourth year, the Au Sable River Writing Contest is the product of a love of great words and the belief that those words can convey powerful ideas and enable people to seek a better understanding of today’s challenges. Since 1987, the Anglers of the Au Sable has, through its nationally recognized quarterly publication, The Riverwatch, educated thousands on the value of preserving the fragile and beautiful Au Sable River Watershed for people today and generations to come. We hope that initiatives like this Writing Contest will help make young citizens of the greater Au Sable watershed more aware of the beautiful environs just beyond their backyards.
The
contest is open to tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders from Grayling, Roscommon,
Oscoda and Mio-Au Sable High Schools. The topic must be based on the theme “Au
Sable River Words.” Three writing categories are judged: Fiction, Non-Fiction,
and Poetry. The Contest’s theme is intentionally broad, designed to encourage
entrants to be creative. When writing, we advise contestants to consider as
their audience people who not only love the beauty of the Au Sable River and
its neighboring areas, but what these treasures symbolize. For fiction and poetry
entries, any story or prose that pertains to the Au Sable, conservation, adventure,
personal relationships, encounters, conservation reflections, personal values
and life experiences is suitable. For non-fiction, real life experiences, natural
encounters, studies (scientific, economic or otherwise), reports on projects,
and even personal opinions are all worthy subjects. We emphasize to the contestants
that writing is to entertain, inform and cause people to consider new ideas
and new ways of solving problems. Further, we tell them: have fun writing but
make the end product interesting to your readers!
In addition to recognition and awards, winning entries in each category will be published in future issues of The Riverwatch.
At left: a facsimile of the brochure (cover only) that is sent to each of the four high schools participating in the contest.
The 2002 Contest begins February 1 and ends March 31, 2002. To participate in
the Contest writers must be students who are in the tenth, eleventh or twelfth
grade during the Contest. Only students from Grayling, Mio-AuSable, Roscommon,
and Oscoda High Schools are eligible.
Entries must be either a work of fiction, a work of non-fiction, or a work of poetry. The topic must be based on the theme “Au Sable River Words.” The entry must be the student's own work and may be up to 2,000 words for fiction and nonfiction, and up to 500 words for poetry. Entries previously published are eligible. The entry must be typed in a font no smaller than 12 points (i.e. 12 pt. Times-Roman or 12 pt. Arial). The Anglers of the Au Sable cannot return entries. IMPORTANT: The student's name, address, and school must appear at the top of each page. The parental permission card (see right) must be filled out and stapled to the back of the essay.
A maximum of 10 entries
per category from each school (up to a total of thirty) will be accepted for
judging. A designated teacher from your school will determine which entries
will be chosen for final judging. All entries sent to the Anglers of the Au
Sable must be submitted by the school, not by individual contestants, and must
be postmarked no later than March 31, 2002. NOTE TO SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVE:
Send your school’s submissions to: Au Sable River Words Writing Contest,
c/o Tess Nelkie, 406 South 12th Avenue, Tawas City, MI 48763. (All school entries
from one school must be sent in one parcel.)
First, second and third place winners
will be chosen from each submission category (fiction, non-fiction, and poetry)
at each participating high school, for a total of nine winners. The three winners
in each category will receive an Honor Certificate. First place winners in each
category will have their name engraved on a plaque to be displayed at each school.
First and second place winners from each category advance to inter-school judging. One overall winner and one runner-up from each category will be chosen. Each overall winner will be awarded a $200 U.S. Savings Bond. The three runners-up will each be awarded a $150 U.S. Savings Bond. These awards will be presented at each school’s awards ceremony.
A panel of seven impartial judges who are members of the Anglers of the Au Sable will review and score entries. They are:
NOTE: Submissions by relatives of judges will disqualify those judges from reviewing/scoring those entries.
To read last year's winning entries, see the October
2000 issue of The Riverwatch (Number 35).
The Anglers have sponsored or co-funded several projects that have improved access or helped curtail erosion along the Au Sable. Projects have included improvements to the canoe landings at Chase and Smith Bridges, and the site below Wakeley Bridge. We have also worked to encourage owners to stabilize and sometimes remove old docks and other man-made structures on private property.
We have also invested in the introduction and maintenance of sand traps along the Au Sable's three branches, another effective erosion control measure. Sand traps are man-made depressions excavated in the river bottom at strategic sites along the river. The sand trap—no more than a mere large hole—collects drifting silt and sand from erosion and heavier stream flows caused by rain and snowmelt. Periodically the traps are emptied using a backhoe. Sand traps also help a river recover (i.e. expose) its gravel bed, helping to provide more suitable spawning habitat for trout and other fish species.
[See the abstract
of an interesting research report by Gaylord Alexander et al,
Effects of Sand Bedload Sediment on a Brook Trout Population,
and another
abstract covering another facet, Sand sediments in a Michigan trout stream.
Part I. In-stream sediment basins: a technique for removing sand bedload from
streams.]
In the last fifteen years, the Anglers have been involved with more than 90 projects. Here are summaries of selected projects that have been completed.
One of the first cause celebres of the Anglers were the No Kill, or Catch and Release, regulations on the mainstream's Holy Water stretch as well as four miles of the South Branch. Led by Jim Schramm, the Anglers used legal and diplomatic channels to press for catch-and-release regulations beginning in 1986.
Unchecked gas and oil exploration has had a profound negative impact on the greater Au Sable region in recent years. The Department of Natural Resources has allegedly mismanaged the regulation of these exploration and production concerns allowing them to virtually run amok in the north woods. Pollution of soil, air (including noise), and ground water has resulted. Development of the Antrim shale natural gas deposits in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan began in earnest in the late 1980s and by 1992 had spread like wildfire through Otsego, Montmorency, Crawford, Oscoda, and Kalkaska Counties. Montmorency was particularly hard hit by the creation of nearly a thousand well pads, hundreds of miles of access roads, and pipeline corridors, as well as numerous pipeline crossings of streams and wetlands.
In 1992, a grassroots organization, the Michigan Environmental Trust Limited (METL), brought suit against some of these companies and the Department of Natural Resources to halt the almost random exploration and digging of test and production wells and running of transport pipelines. The primary issues at hand were: stream sedimentation and forest fragmentation. The Anglers were an intervening party (as was Trout Unlimited) to this law suit which sought to assign blame to numerous exploration and production companies operating in the Antrim Gas Field in the northern lower peninsula. Legal expenses, expert witnesses, environmental consultants and miscellaneous expenses far exceeded $100,000. The Anglers supported this effort financially for several years. More important, director Dick Daane served as the lead plaintiff attorney for METL throughout the three-year legal campaign.
In December 1992, Ingham County Judge Carolyn Stell issued a temporary injunction effective in the five hardest hit counties. The injunction provided that all pipeline stream crossings in those counties were to be made by boring beneath the streambeds rather than by plowing or trenching across the streambed surface. The MDNR was enjoined from issuing permits for pipeline crossings made by means other than streambed boring. At the same time, Judge Stell also ordered the DNR to produce an environmental impact statement (EIS) by June 30, 1993. On that deadline, the MDNR responded with a document which included work by Gaylord Alexander and Andrew Nuhfer supporting the plaintiffs' contentions that Antrim gas development was a significant source of trout stream pollution by sedimentation. The plaintiffs then moved for judgment on the basis of the EIS but Judge Stell ruled that too many additional factual issues remained unresolved and scheduled the matter for trial on June 6, 1994.
Also proposed was the initiation of a spacing hearing before the Supervisor of Wells seeking a statewide spacing order providing for well density of no more than one well per eighty acres and no less than one well per 160 acres. If such an order is entered, it will not only be effective statewide but will bind producers who are not parties to the litigation and who would thus, without such an order, be free to continue the current forty acre spacing. From the plaintiffs' perspective, this order will be particularly advantageous since it affords relief broader than could likely have been obtained through direct action by the court.
The DNR, represented by the Attorney General's Office, refused to agree to an expansion of the stream boring injunction. Accordingly, while negotiations continued on the well spacing issue, METL filed a motion to expand the scope of the stream-crossing injunction to fifteen counties and to make it permanent. This motion was heard by the court as a contested matter on May 19, 1994. On June 1, 1994, the court granted the motion and signed a permanent injunction. At the same time, Judge Stell also signed a consent order addressing the well spacing by ordering the parties to seek a spacing order from the Supervisor of Wells.
In late 1994 a compromise was reached regarding
the spacing order: 80 acres per well, far better than the legacy forty acres
per well, but short of the targeted 120 acre spacing desired by the plaintiffs.
There is now in place a permanent injunction requiring pipeline crossings to
be bored beneath the streams in the following counties. Antrim, Crawford, Montmorency,
Oscoda, Otsego, Alpena, Alcona, Benzie, Charlevoix, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska,
Mason, Lake, Roscommon, and Manistee. The practice of trenching stream crossings
and releasing sediment responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead trout is
judicially banned on a permanent basis. Only if an applicant for a pipeline
crossing can demonstrate that a different method is environmentally friendlier
or that boring will present an undue hardship, may the MDNR then issue a permit
for a crossing by an alternative method. If the plaintiffs disagree with such
a DNR decision to issue an alternative permit they may apply to Judge Stell's
court for relief from the MDNR's decision.
[Read Ed McGlinn's introductory
report on the Antrim Gas lawsuit,
The
Antrim Killing Fields,
in The Riverwatch - Issue #16, November 1993.]
[Read plaintiff
attorney Dick Daane's assessment,
On
the Courthouse Steps: The Antrim Gas Case,
in The Riverwatch - Issue #18, July 1994.]
Beginning in 1988, the Anglers helped sponsor an inland fisheries project undertaken by the Michigan Institute for Fisheries Research in association with the University of Michigan. Rick Clark was the primary advisor of the student (Dave Clapp) who did the first telemetry study. The project involved electroshocking and then implanting radio transmitters in adult brown trout in the 4-mile no-kill section of the South Branch. This would permit radio telemetry tracking of the moving of the study population through the course of two years. There were several significant findings as a result of this research. Key among these is that there is significant upstream/downstream migration of adult brown trout in the South Branch. The fish you might catch near Daisy Bend in June may have spent its early spring six miles upstream near Roscommon. Clapp found that very large trout moved long distances, at least part of the time. You also might want to look at research report 1998, which looked at movement of more normal sized trout. The quick summary of this study was that smaller trout did not move very much. That is why you don't hear much about that study.
[See an abstract of Clapp's research report..]
[See a 1992 abstract
on Gary Regal's Master Thesis, Range of Movement and Daily Activity of Wild
Brown Trout in
the South Branch Au Sable River, Michigan ]
[See an more
recent abstract (1993) of John Hudson's research report on
Seasonal and Daily Movements of Large Brown Trout
in the Mainstream Au Sable River..]
Seeking to leverage funds wherever available, since 1995 the Anglers have regularly solicited funds from various private organizations and public institutions. One of the more significant awards were the grants from the Michigan Department of Transportation through the federally-subsidized Intermodal Surface Transportation Act.
[Read Jay
Gleason's report,
Ice
Tea ,
in The Riverwatch - Issue #22.]
[Webmaster's Note: We are currently compiling information on this interesting study. Stay tuned for additional data.]
[Webmaster's Note: We are currently compiling information on this interesting study. Stay tuned for additional data.]
The
Anglers have co-sponsored patrols by the Crawford County Sheriff's Marine Patrol
since 1994. The patrols occur on summer weekends and holidays to help curtail
rowdy behavior by canoeists. Other sponsors include some of the Au Sable's canoe
liveries. Patrols have generally been effective at the canoe landings but more
needs to be done to curtail rowdy and irresponsible behavior while canoeists
are astream. The Anglers have suspended funding of this program for the time
being.
Since 1994, the Anglers have helped fund
river patrols during peak
periods of canoeing along the Au Sable mainstream and South Branch.
The Anglers of the Au Sable have long recognized the need for building a sustainable fund to continue its long term financial health and effectiveness. Thus, fund-raising projects have been discussed many times. The Commemorative Flies project, "Fishing Flies of the Au Sable," an idea first proposed by board member Mike Fennell in 1990, is one project that has helped sustain our financial reserves.
We have recognized that we must count on special fund-raising projects like this to prepare ourselves for strategic projects in the future, such as stream improvement, conservation battles (in the court room and out), and the number of very worthwhile projects we wish we could fund on a regular basis (funding a fisheries biologist research assistant every summer on the Au Sable, for instance).
Equally as important, we recognize
that artistic projects like the "Fishing Flies of the Au Sable" sometimes
make a more meaningful and lasting statement about our cause. Throughout history,
civilization has relied on art and artists to make provocative statements about
all that have concerned us. We believe the Au Sable River, richly steeped in
story and myth, will benefit once again from the displays of fishing flies used
on its waters. Flies that one day might be gentle reminders to your grand children
that it is those same flies that work still.
This project was conceived by former board member Mike Fennell. It is a series of four wall-mounted, shadowbox-framed fishing fly displays that feature fly patterns of historical or popular significance to the Au Sable area. This program has been successful; of the limited edition of twenty-eight sets of shadowboxes, twenty-three sets have been sold. This program has netted the Anglers approximately $16,000.
[We still have some shadowboxes for sale! For more information...]
Despite the scores of projects that the Anglers have sponsored over the last 15 years, there may be a project or two that we should know about and don't. Whether it's just an idea you wish to kick around, or a well-organized plan, please let us know about it by contacting Rusty Gates at gator@freeway.net.
Please contact Rusty Gates at gator@gateslodge.com.
© Copyright 2001, Anglers of the Au Sable, Inc. All rights reserved. Last modified February 14, 2008 .
