Posted on January 19, 2021
KALAMAZOO, MI — The mud is coming out.
Well, a small portion of it anyway.
Eagle Creek Renewable Energy will begin dredging impoundment sludge from a Kalamazoo River side channel next month; an initial stab at removing mass quantities of sediment that began choking the river last year after the company drained its Morrow Lake reservoir.
The company, which owns the Morrow Dam in Comstock Township, will dredge a roughly 3,000-foot oxbow section of river near the township’s Wenke Park that’s been filled-in with sediment which Eagle Creek allowed to wash down from the 1,000-acre upstream reservoir.
The work is expected to begin in February. For the moment, state regulators say it’s the only sediment dredging Eagle Creek has committed to conduct in the river.
“This is kind of voluntary,” said Kyle Alexander, head of the local water resources division office at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE). “They came to us and said, ‘here’s some areas we can get started on.’”
Alexander said EGLE plans to push for additional dredging when it sits down with Eagle Creek attorneys in the near future to discuss violations of state environmental law.
“I can almost guarantee part of the ask on our part will be for additional restoration, not just at the river oxbow but further downstream as well,” he said.
David Fox, director of licensing and compliance for Eagle Creek, said the company is analyzing data on sediment accumulation in the river gathered during December surveys and that “will be used to develop plans for additional investigation work.”
Fox said a sediment management plan may include more removal actions “if deemed necessary upon coordination” with EGLE, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is overseeing a separate Superfund cleanup in the river this year that’s been complicated by the accumulation of reservoir mud.
STS Hydropower, a subsidiary of Eagle Creek (which is owned by Ontario Power Generation), finished a gate replacement project at Morrow Dam in December and has refilled the reservoir that it drained with little warning in November 2019 after getting spooked by an inspection report that prompted what the company called an “emergency” move.
Morrow Dam is the largest in Kalamazoo County and is rated as “high hazard,” meaning it could endanger people’s lives were it to fail and unleash flooding.
State regulators were upset at the sudden reservoir drawdown, which they say Eagle Creek offered little to no advance warning about despite the company’s claim to various lawmakers, officials and media outlets that it was done in close consultation with state regulators.
As result, the state says, spring rains helped wash years’ worth of newly unfrozen sediment through the dam and down the river, where it piled into side channels and formed huge mud bars and flats that have smothered wildlife habitat and recontoured bends in the river.
The DNR says anglers have reported new sedimentation as far as Lake Allegan, about 40 miles downstream where the next dam in the river is located.
The full extent of the damage and total amount of sediment that washed down is still being estimated using data from bathymetric surveys and laser-based measuring tools.
Alexander said EGLE is expecting a report from Eagle Creek this month on sediment volume that would include an analysis of any contaminants that washed down as well. That should help target priority areas for more dredging.
“Whatever the total amount of sediment that mobilized and moved downstream was, it will never all be captured and removed,” Alexander said. “That would be impossible.”
In Comstock Township, Fox said the oxbow side channel where dredging is planned “functions as a naturally occurring sediment trap,” and Eagle Creek thinks that “removing material from this location could enable this section of the river to act as a control measure that will trap sediments that may migrate downstream from areas below the dam.”
The company wants to use Wenke Park as a staging ground for equipment, something which the township parks department is presently evaluating and would need to approve.
Scott Hess, township superintendent, said Comstock staff are hoping the dredging operation will receive more oversight from EGLE than they’ve noticed so far. Hess said it would have been helpful to have state regulators present during a meeting with Eagle Creek recently at Wenke Park.
EGLE would have to approve a dredging and disposal permit.
Hess said township residents have expressed concern about sediment in the river depositing in grassy yards and other areas in the floodplain when the river rises in the spring.
“Will Merrill Park be black with sediment? Who is going to be responsible for that?” Hess asked. “As soon as the river rises this spring, I think you’ll hear a lot more hootin’ and hollerin’ over this sediment once it gets up on the shorelines.”
Hess said the township is glad to see the Morrow Lake reservoir refilled. The fire department had to rescue several people at different times last year who kayaked into the reservoir from upstream and then got stranded in the muck while trying to reach the boat launch.
“We had to bring in the airboat from Cooper Township two or three times to get people out of there,” Hess said.
Source: mlive
