Tippy South River Bank Rehabilitation and Access Improvement
Grant: # 1818
Grant Amount: $50,000.00
Board Decision Year: 2018
Trout Unlimited (Arlington )
Geist, Jeremy ([email protected]) 2488777256
2018 GLFT Access to the Great Lakes Fishery - Access to the Great Lakes Fishery
Project Details
The Manistee River, below Tippy Dam (Wellston, MI), is a federally designated Wild and Scenic River. Much of the adjacent land throughout the stretch is owned by the United States Forest Service (USFS) as part of the Huron-Manistee National Forest (HMNF). The stretch of river supports robust populations of naturally reproducing chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead (potamodromous rainbow trout), as well as resident brown and brook trout. Due to the existing diverse fish community, coupled with abundant access, it has become highly valued and a popular destination for anglers and other recreationists. Because of this popularity, recreationists accessing the Manistee River within the project area have established an array of user created routes. These routes are unsustainable and have direct impacts on the resources, such as the loss of stream bank vegetation. Further, the stream bank within the project area is steep and high (15 to 20 feet in places) and dispersed “bank climbing” to access the river, primarily for fishing, has contributed to increased and severe bank erosion. The project team sought to restore, stabilize and revegetate the stream bank, and improve angler access at the south bank of the Big Manistee River below the Tippy hydropower dam.
Through a comprehensive planning effort, the project team had identified Phase I as the restoration ofapproximately250 linear feet of stream bank using bioengineering practices(e.g., toe-wood, fabric encapsulated soil lifts, etc.)and creating designated access(i.e., staircase and cobble walkway)to sustain angling and other recreational opportunity
Products and Resources:
Trout Unlimited has created multiple communications via blogs and story maps of the project that can
be found here:
https://www.tu.org/blog/new-story-map-highlights-tippy-dam-project-in-mich/
The final report can be accessed at this link.