Assessing the Otter River watershed
By DAN SCHNEIDER, DMG WriterArticle Photos
TAPIOLA - Citizens interested in the future of the Otter River watershed met Tuesday evening at the Doelle Senior Citizens Center.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) hosted the meeting. The federal agency is funding a Rapid Watershed Assessment of the Otter River.
A group called the Otter River Watershed Steering Committee is leading a renewed push to gauge the quality of the Otter and its tributaries.
The focus of the RWA is to provide a detailed look at the current condition of the watershed, identifying and prioritizing problem spots.
"The idea is to capture some of the problems, identify them on the map, and get a very rough estimate of the cost to correct them," NRCS Area Conservationist for the Upper Peninsula Mike LaPointe said.
After that work is completed, he said, the group will be ready to take advantage of funding opportunities when they become available.
The Otter River watershed is the subject of one of two Rapid Watershed Assessments currently ongoing statewide. The other is also a local watershed - the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community is undertaking an assessment of the watersheds within its tribal lands through the program.
NRCS Houghton-Keweenaw-Baraga Resource Conservationist Bruce Peterson said community interest in the Otter River helped its selection for the program, but so did the river itself.
"This one was selected largely because of the quality of it," he said. "It's one of the last rivers in the state to have grayling, for instance."
In the Otter River watershed, sedimentation is the primary concern. River currents have pulled sand and other particulates from the banks and pushed the material downstream.
The sandy bottom of the river's west branch below the Pelkie Bridge is evidence of this buildup, but the effects are more pronounced where the river empties into the lower part of Otter Lake.
The U.S. Geological Survey Map from 1954 shows the river's mouth cutting through a fairly straight shoreline. Satellite images taken earlier this year show the Otter has pushed a finger-like peninsula of sand two thirds of the way across the lake. The river runs through the center of this pseudopod, which is grown green with not only grass but plants large enough to cast shadows in the satellite image.
Dave Rulison, a member of the Otter River Watershed Steering Committee who has been surveying the river by canoe and kayak this summer, said he has not seen a lot of direct evidence of human impact causing washouts. He said most culverts and bridges in the river did not have significant erosion in their immediate vicinity, though erosion often occurred at the periphery of the riprap around these structures.
Tuesday night's meeting at the Doelle Senior Citizens Center in downtown Tapiola was well-attended. Several of the people sitting in the folding chairs, most of whom lived or owned property on one of the Otter River's two branches, described a declining fishery in the river.
"I could catch 15- or 16-inch speckies and it wasn't a problem," Phil Faucher said of trout fishing in the days when he first moved to a house along the river 35 years ago. "I don't see the fish and I don't catch the fish that I used to."
Faucher and others in attendance placed part of the blame for the reduced fish numbers on the dam built at Otter Lake and its fish ladder, with some believed was an ineffective route of travel for fish.
Complaints about fishing conditions on the river triggered a study in the early 1990s. One of the findings in that study's final report led to changes in the fish ladder's design.
Peterson said the RWA began in May and a rough draft of its findings is slated for completion in September.
Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider@mininggazette.com
|
LandAndWater
|
|
|---|---|
|
10-02-08 11:12 AM
|
Did they ever consider that the trout have died off BECAUSE they built a bunch of houses on the river?
|