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Local News

New plan to repair damage to Little Thornapple Drain to go to DEQ

A meeting of county and state officials concerned with the restoration of damage caused by excessive tree removal along part of 14 miles of the Little Thornapple River Drain, all in the Thornapple River, resulted in some movement on the process.  

Barry County Drain Commissioner Jim Dull,  Deputy Director of Michigan Department of Agricultural and Rural Development, Brady Harrington, Streamside Ecological Services (SES) Co-founder Aaron Snell and Barry County Commissioner Jon Smelker met with four officials of the MDEQ in March. An update was given at a Monday, April 17 meeting.

“They reached agreement on some things,” Harrington said of the meeting. “They will allow the board to manually remove fill from (0.9 acres) the wetlands which will, “significantly reduce cost to the district.”

The DEQ required more detailed information, a formal agreement and a back-up plan if the plan does not bring the area back to near original condition.

The DEQ recommends correcting ecological loss of functioning by the dredging by placing 4,000 feet of wood in the mainstream to replace lost fish habitat and prevent erosion.

“Another 2,500 feet is impacted that is not readily acessible,” Harrington said. They will look for other sites instead. “The DEQ is agreeable to it being upstream of the westerly part…”

On the monitoring, Dull said an agreement with Snell will provide a list of things to be monitored with reports given every six months that the drain office can do, “so he won’t have to be on site all that time and save us some money.”

After an hour in closed session with the Intercounty Drain Board’s Attorney Stacy Hissong, the board returned and unnimously voted to accept the revised version made with Hissong’s input and directed Snell to submit a plan to the DEQ by May 12, detailing every activilty, justifying locations and ecological benefits.

His submission will include the “tweaking” done in closed session with the attorney.  Also, Hissong will negotiate a consent order with the DEQ. The plan has to be accepted by the DEQ and also the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Hissong said and, “will take some time…it will be months.”

In the meantime Hissong will see if the drain board, “can start on some of it,” while waiting for formal approval of the plan.

SES was contracted in 2015 by the Intercounty Drain Board to develop a remediation plan acceptable to the DEQ,  Snell submitted two plans; the first was returned for revisions. The second has been stalled since last fall.

The next board meeting will be June 7, at the Barry Central Dispatch meeting room at 9 a.m.

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