Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council receives $641,000 Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant

A big piece of the $4.2 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative pie of funding sent toward different environmental organizations and conservation efforts is coming to Northern Michigan.

According to a May 4 press release from Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Michigan will receive $4.2 million in grants from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to assist in ongoing efforts to combat the threat of various invasive species and protect the Great Lakes, including more than $1.4 million going toward Northern Michigan projects.

The Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council will be the beneficiary of $641,077 of those funding dollars and use the grant to apply new treatment efforts in the fight against the invasive zebra and quagga mussels being found in larger and larger numbers in inland lakes around Northern Michigan.

“This funding will have a huge impact,” said Matt Claucherty, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council water resource specialist. “It will allow us to evaluate a whole new wave of treating these invasive species in our inland lakes. It is furthering our efforts in restoration toward what we had before these invasive mussels.”

The project will be a cooperative effort between several different agencies and groups — including the watershed council, various lake associations, U.S. Geological Survey and others — and includes a new treatment involving the closely-monitored application of Zequanox, a sterilized bacteria cell used in industrial application with intake pipes and shoreline infrastructure to clear buildups of zebra mussels.

Claucherty said the treatment results in high mortality rates for both mussel species and has shown little to no effects toward other organisms. Through the project, the product will be used through a different approach involving testing it in open water in inland lakes, with teams of researchers monitoring every nuance of the environment within the treatment areas, while comparing those area to untreated areas of the lake.

“This will shed a lot of light on the possibility for future management options for lakes with these invasive mussels already established,” Claucherty said.

Native, non-invasive mussels, will also be a focus of the project, as the researchers will observe and see how they respond.

When zebra or quagga mussels get into a lake they proliferate quickly and reach high numbers. They have no natural predators in the lakes, Claucherty said, but they feed heavily on phytoplankton, which provide the base of the food chain for small organisms and fish.

The Great Lakes were the first to become infected, he said, and have seen the amount of energy within its food webs decline greatly. Inland lakes have been delayed in showing this response due to the length of time it took zebra mussels to spread, but they too have shown great declines in productivity.

Some inland lakes don't have them yet, usually the smaller, less traveled further inland lakes.

Claucherty said they hope the treatment will help in reducing the zebra and quagga mussel populations throughout all the inland lakes in the region, while allowing native mussel numbers to increase.

“(Native mussels) have declined greatly since invasive mussels moved in,” he said. “By monitoring their health through this project, we can evaluate their response to the treatment and by eliminating zebra and quagga mussels, we can start to create small refuges for native mussels.”

The widespread lake infestation of zebra mussels began to be documented as early as 2000, with some of Northern Michigan's more isolated and less-used lakes more recently seeing such activity.

Quagga mussels, located mainly in the Great Lakes and inland waterways connected to the Great Lakes, have not infested all of the region's inland lakes, Claucherty said, though they are likely to move in following the same infestation pattern as the zebra mussel.

To prevent larger infestations and the spread of quagga mussels, as well as zebra mussels, part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding will also go toward educating youth on these invasive mussels and what they can do to prevent the spread, like clean boating practices.

“By educating some of our younger folks, we can help to spread the knowledge that our actions can impact ecosystems far beyond what we would usually think,” Claucherty said.

He and the watershed council are thrilled to see this funding and hope the project will help make a difference.

Though the hope is the work will greatly reduce zebra and quagga mussel populations from local waterways, he said it will be difficult to eliminate the populations altogether.

“Eradication is a controversial word in invasive species management,” he said. “While eradication is feasible, it is also very difficult to obtain. I don't think this project will directly tell us how we can eradicate mussels, but it will go a long way in evaluating a new method that works toward removing them from our lake ecosystems.”

The project will most likely involve one lake, which has not yet been chosen. Preliminary surveys will be conducted to determine which one it will be. Claucherty said they will be very careful in working with local residents living around the lake that is picked to make sure everyone is comfortable and on board with what they are doing.

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has awarded the watershed council in the past, he said, which included funding for projects throughout the organization's coverage area, including a stormwater wetland at the North Central Michigan College Natural Area.

Claucherty said they are excited to take advantage of the funding once more.

“It's very exciting to be awarded this money to pursue such a cutting edge method of control for these invasives,” he said. “A method that could lead to a huge change in our inland lakes. It could be a really impactful project.”

Other Northern Michigan organizations receiving grants from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative include the Grand Traverse Conservation District ($301,340) and Grand Traverse Bay Watershed ($499,370).

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