REGION- The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is awarding more than $1.7 million in Fisheries Habitat Grants for conservation projects on lakes and streams statewide. The funds are matched by more than $950,000 in partner contributions, for a total conservation value of about $2.7 million.
The projects will rehabilitate and protect valuable fish habitats that provide the foundation for Michigan’s world-class fisheries. Two of them are DNR Priority Habitat Conservation Projects – those proactively identified by the department as important to sustaining healthy habitats, fisheries and aquatic communities – and another four are projects that directly benefit priorities of Michigan’s Wildlife Action Plan.
The Fisheries Habitat Grant program provides funding for a variety of activities including fish habitat conservation, dam removal and repair, resource assessment studies and access to recreation opportunities such as fishing. Funding from fishing license sales, state of Michigan general funds and a settlement with Consumers Energy is distributed through three grant areas: aquatic habitat conservation, dam management, and aquatic habitat and recreation in the Au Sable, Manistee and Muskegon river watersheds.
Most of the funding is distributed through traditional grants that are funded this year, but the Fisheries Habitat Grant program also provides conditional commitments for funding from future years. These conditional commitments enable partners to leverage future Fisheries Habitat Grant funds in applications for federal and other funding sources, making high-priority and sometimes very expensive projects possible.
Some of this year’s funded projects (and counties where projects are located) include:
- Conservation Resource Alliance – Boyne Falls Dam removal options analysis (Charlevoix County), conditional commitment for $135,000.
- Conservation Resource Alliance – Manistee River tributaries aquatic organism passage (Wexford County), $150,000.
- J.A. Woollam Foundation – Restoring fish passage on the headwaters of the Fox River (Alger County), $62,264.
- Michigan Trout Unlimited – North Branch Manistee stream restoration and improvement at Flowing Wells (Kalkaska County), $144,800.
- Michigan Trout Unlimited – Riparian wood inventory for opportunistic stream improvement on state land (Crawford and Kalkaska counties), $27,700.
Fisheries Habitat Grant funding is available annually to local, state, federal and tribal governments and nonprofit groups through an open, competitive process. The next request for proposals is expected to be announced in September.
Learn more about the Fisheries Habitat Grant program and other grant opportunities at Michigan.gov/DNRGrants.
