By Staff
It's amazing how much civilization has changed Michigan's rivers and streams, and rarely for the good. From time immemorial our waterways flowed gin clear and ice cold. Then in the mid 1800s Michigan was literally stripped of every tree big enough to make a board or stoke a furnace. The soil of this denuded landscape eroded into the streams and covered their bottoms with silt. Without shade water temperatures soared, wiping out predominant fish species such as grayling. Later, our streams became handy waste dumping grounds. Countless waterways from majestic rivers like the Grand and Kalamazoo to small local jewels became stinking masses of slithering sludge. The trout that were transplanted to fill the grayling's niche disappeared from these waters as did the insects, crayfish and minnows that make up the food chain.
We hold in contempt the big industries that defiled our waters but equally to blame are folks like you and I and we're still at it. Few realize just how fragile a stream is and what little it takes to dramatically affect its character. This is evident right around here. For instance, take Sheldon Creek east of Marcellus. I can remember when trout languished in water that flowed clear year around. Then farmers up in the headwaters started plowing right up to water's edge, allowing rain washed silt into the stream. Further downstream someone dammed it to make a private yard pond. Either by accident or design, occasionally the pond was drained, washing tons of sediment downstream. In most places the hard sand bottom of the Sheldon is now buried under gooey muck. Trout don't live in ugly places and today the stream is only inhabited by mud loving carp, a few minnows and fewer yet insects.
A short ways east of the Sheldon is the Flowerfield River. This river has largely escaped the muck syndrome now plaguing so many southern Michigan streams yet the trout have disappeared. Several years ago I set out to see why. A temperature check of the lower river revealed it was seventy-two degrees, four degrees higher than trout and the cool water aquatic insects they feed on can stand. Up at its forested beginnings the water coming out of the ground was a pleasurable sixty-four degrees. Only a short ways downstream, though, the trees gave way to cattle pastures. Here the sun quickly baked the water to over seventy degrees. Further below, weeds nourished by cow manure and perhaps fertilizer choked the stream, slowing its flow. On its journey south the river wends through a checkerboard mosaic of patchy woodlands and agriculture fields. The shade of each woodlot cools the water by several degrees but it's for naught as once the stream reenters the open fields it warms right back up again. Another not long ago healthy stream has been relegated to carp water.
Fortunately, commercial pollution and large scale alteration of our waterways are a thing of the past. Now any due blame rests squarely on the shoulders of us individuals. Every foot of shoreline we clear of vegetation allows a little bit of sediment and sunlight into the water. Every field that is drained into a stream and every cow that walks in its waters adds destructive silt, fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide. Taken individually our little sins don't seem like that big a deal but over the course of time the culmination of these offenses takes its toll. The Dowagiac River started to show signs of this abuse around 1970. Today, all but the lowest stretch is a mud trench, not from the easily blamed 1920s dredging, but from irresponsible farming practices at its headwaters that continue to this day.
This year for the first time the always clear waters of the lower Dowagiac Creek, a branch of the Dowagiac River, have been flowing chocolate milk muddy all summer. I traced this problem upstream to Lake LaGrange. I've yet to decipher the cause but this once stable impoundment is now sick and it's a good bet man somehow has a hand in it. Our waters are extremely resilient and they can recover. The question is: will we afford them the chance. Carpe diem.