The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Great Lakes Basin Fish Habitat Partnership are pleased to announce the approval of over $380,000 in grants aimed at supporting on-the-ground fish habitat work in the Great Lakes under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI).
"It is with great pleasure that we announce this year's Great Lakes Basin Fish Habitat Partnership projects. With continuing support from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative we are able to fund important on-the-ground projects like these that help to improve aquatic habitats throughout the Great Lakes Basin," said Todd Turner, Assistant Regional Director of Fisheries for the Service’s Midwest Region.
The 2012 grant recipients are as follows:
Michigan
The Conservation Resource Alliance was granted $100,000 for the Boardman River Dam Removal: Channel and Restoration Phase - Brown Bridge Dam project. As part of a larger, comprehensive project to restore the Boardman River, the Conservation Resource Alliance and its partners will be restoring the natural river channel and habitats currently being impacted by the upper-most structure, Brown Bridge Dam, once it is removed. This project will help manage 111,500 cubic yards of sediment, revegetate 25 acres of exposed land and manage invasive vegetation on 200 acres of exposed bottomland.
The Huron Pines was granted $140,000 for the Rifle River Watershed Restoration project. Using a technical and scientific approach to high priority, on-the-ground restoration, the Huron Pines and its partners will replace culverts that restrict stream flow, implement best management practices to address sediment input from erosion sites, and restore instream and riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.
Learn more about riparian habitat along the Rifle River. Approximately 12 miles of trout stream will be reconnected, 2,500 linear feet of riparian buffer will be installed and six high priority streambank erosion sites will be restored to remove harmful sediment from the system.
New York
Ducks Unlimited was granted $74,984 for the Fish Habitat Enhancement project at Lake Shore Marshes Wetland Management Area (WMA). Ducks Unlimited, working with its partners, will restore hydrologic function, improve fish migration, and enhance spawning, nursery, and rearing habitat within two coastal marsh systems (Red Creek and Beaver Creek marshes) at Lake Shore Marshes WMA. The project will create 2.5 acres of shallow, open-water areas and 3,000 feet of channel within the vegetate coastal marshes for the benefit of northern pike and other warmwater fish species.
The grants were awarded under the Great Lakes Basin Fish Habitat Partnership, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a bureau of the Department of the Interior.
