Posted on November 20, 2017
By Daniel Pepper, Allegan Co. News
Contractors working on the Kalamazoo River cleanup project west of Otsego had to shut down when heavy rain swelled the river in October.
“We shut down for two weeks and we probably lost three weeks in total,” on scene coordinator Paul Ruesch said.
From Oct. 16 to about Nov. 4 the river was too high for the Environmental Protection Agency-ordered cleanup work to continue.
“It wasn’t a complete shut down, we had guys out there but we couldn’t dig or make progress,” Ruesch said.
Sand and gravel brought in was washed away and access roads needed for the cleanup were damaged by the high waters. Replanted trees and shrubs were also damaged by the unseasonably high water.
“It inundates all the roads and restoration area,” Ruesch said. “We had to wait for it to go back down and then we had to get back in and restabilize the areas.”
The contractors had been working on cleaning up along the banks where they used sheetpile to hold the river back while they use heavy equipment to dig up the top level of soil and replace it with clean.
“Sheetpile doesn’t create a perfect seal, we have to pump it out to use it,” Ruesch said.
The EPA said that the high water did not lead to any additional PCB contamination of the river.
Restoration work
The restoration of the river is now visible in one specific sense, the river is flowing at the level it will be at when the project is done.
The work to dredge a new channel through the former impoundment above the Otsego Township dam has been completed and dredging equipment moved from the site.
Contractors then removed all the stop logs from the temporary water control structure installed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to make sure the over 100 year old dam didn’t fail.
“There’s no damming effect there anymore,” Ruesch said. “The river is flowing free.”
The lower water level, now that the river is more like its normal November level, helps work continue on the banks more easily. The DNR and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality both concurred and signed off on the decision.
The project is going to continue working this fall and winter as long as possible.
Especially there will be a lot of activity at the former dam site, where plans are being prepared to remove the temporary water control structure and the parts of the former dam which won’t be left when the project finishes up.
Source: Allegan Co. News
