TRAVERSE CITY, MI – A planned aquatic investigation halfway received a greenish ray this week from Michigan’s apical tribunal aft much than 2 years of ineligible hurdles.

The FishPass task was cleared for improvement aft nan Michigan Supreme Court connected Aug. 22 refused to return up an entreaty revenge by a Traverse City man who has for years challenged nan city’s authority to let nan task without a nationalist vote. A section judge sided pinch nan national successful April 2021, but nan Michigan Court of Appeals overturned nan ruling successful October past year.

The Michigan Supreme Court was not persuaded nan rumor warranted further reappraisal and denied nan petition for continued appeal.

FishPass was designed to switch nan aging Union Street Dam successful downtown Traverse City’s Boardman River, called nan Ottaway River by nan section Native people helping to money nan project.

Designs were finalized and a much than $20 cardinal fund group earlier nan suit brought nan task to a halt much than 2 years ago.

“We are committed to moving intimately pinch our partners to guarantee nan effective implementation of FishPass, and we are assured that this task will present important benefits for years to come,” said Richard Lewis, Traverse City’s mayor.

FishPass is nan capstone to astir 2 decades of restoration activity connected nan Boardman (Ottaway) River to reconnect nan watercourse pinch Lake Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay. Michigan’s largest reservoir removal effort already took retired 3 dams connected nan stream betwixt 2012 and 2018.

Union Street Dam was built successful 1867 to powerfulness a flour mill, but now it controls h2o levels connected adjacent Boardman Lake. State inspectors classed nan building arsenic “fair to poor,” but without expected imminent failure.

The planned 10-year FishPass task will create in-water mechanisms to benignant food swimming upstream but requires building of caller technological infrastructure astatine nan tract of nan past remaining reservoir connected nan river.

The conception is to find a reliable measurement to let desirable food to walk beyond nan building to spawn – specified arsenic autochthonal trout aliases sturgeon – but artifact invasive type specified arsenic oversea lamprey. The results will beryllium shared internationally pinch biology regulators facing nan aforesaid stream connectivity problems, according to nan Great Lakes Fishery Commission, nan lead agency connected nan investigation project.

Initial plans called for nan investigation installation successful nan stream to beryllium wholly constructed by early this year.

Partners connected nan pending task see nan fishery commission, City of Traverse City, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and nan Boardman River Dams Implementation Team.

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