Mike Smalligan is the Forest Stewardship Coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources.
He shows me a map that outlines how much of the watershed for each Great Lake is forest, agriculture, and urban. Thanks in no small part to Canada, the watersheds of Superior and Huron are mostly forested. Less so for Lakes Michigan and Ontario. Lake Erie’s watershed is mostly agricultural and urban areas.
“So just looking at the land use of these watersheds, it becomes pretty clear and intuitive to people that as we replace forests with factories and farms and urban sprawl, that's where we're getting, you know, impacts on our water quality.”
Smalligan has created a program named Forest to MI Faucet – the “my” is M-I standing for Michigan, of course. Smalligan says planting a lot more trees in the right places can make a difference in the quality of the water that we end up drinking.
“The main thing that we're doing is reaching out to municipal water utilities and asking them, how can we help you implement your source water protection plan? How can we help you reduce your treatment costs by taking good care of the land in the upstream part of the watershed?”
Near Traverse City, D. J. Shook is showing me a project his group did. The Boardman River was once dammed up and the valley below us was a lake. This part of the Boardman is now a free and flowing river again. And dotted all over the valley are young trees planted by the Conservation Resource Alliance.
“We had this great opportunity to restore riparian forests buffer right along the edge of the river, which has a lot of benefits, one of them being water quality protection and improvement.”
The Boardman River empties into the Grand Traverse Bay. Traverse City gets its drinking water from the bay.
And keeping water clean before the water treatment plant takes it in, can mean less cost to purify it for drinking water. DJ Shook says that’s where the idea of Forest to MI Faucet makes a lot of sense.
“By far increasing the forested area that drains into a body of water is the cheapest way to protect it for the long term and keep the clean water clean.”
So, the Conservation Resource Alliance is talking with the City, asking what the Alliance can do to help keep the water that flows to the bay cleaner.
Frank Dituri is the Traverse City Director of Public Services. He hiked with us out to this site overlooking the Boardman River.
“Anyone with an ecological conscience realizes that that the quality of the water on the land that winds up in our streams and lakes is is something we all need to have care with.”
Dituri says there are many sources of water that enter the Grand Traverse Bay. He says the area becoming more urban. Upstream many of the homes and lake communities are using septic tank systems and the state says one-fourth of septic systems are failing. Thinking about water quality and using nature to help filter it before it enters the bay is kind of a no-brainer.
“If you really think about it, well, it's long overdue. I think as we start to grow our mindset and we understand how connected everything is, how could we not be having this kind of conversation regarding our water resources?”
The head of Conservation Resource Alliance, Amy Beyer, has spent decades planting trees along streams to help create wildlife corridors. Those trees allow bears, owls, and other wildlife to connect with mates and find food in the streams. She says this kind of partnership that the D-N-R is backing offers even more benefits.
“It saves the city money, it improves people's drinking water quality, and it improves the entire fish and wildlife ecosystem of the watershed to do one thing, and that is plant trees.”
The Forest to MI Faucet program is encouraging foresters and municipal water treatment operators around the state to talk. They can get together to review source water assessment plans. They can pinpoint areas where planting trees could make a real difference in the quality of the water that ultimately comes out your faucet.