Salmon, Trout Prove Rouge No Longer On Brink Of Death

[Phil Lilley]

http://www.hometownlife.com/article/200811...CHIGAN/81126002

November 26, 2008

Salmon, trout prove Rouge no longer on brink of death

Mention the Rouge River to some people in these parts and their thoughts are likely to conjure up images of industrial pollution, smelly logjams or, perhaps, even an open sewer.

I’m not one of those people.

When I think of the Rouge River, I think about fishing (including for trout and salmon), canoeing and taking hikes along picturesque banks.

OK, I’ll give you a moment to get the laughter out of your system. I’m not crazy (well, maybe a little bit). And I’m not thinking about the future. Believe it or not, after a generation of restoration efforts, the Rouge River is steadily coming back to life.

Since participating in my first Rouge Rescue about a decade ago, I’ve gotten to know our little river well. Despite its reputation, and all that humanity has done to her, I have come to learn that this river (like all of nature) is resilient and full of surprises.

Like in early November, when I took the kids and dog for a walk across the street to Goudy Park in downtown Wayne. As we walked along the river’s edge, I looked down to see a female salmon laying along the rocks. She had just died after spawning near a spot just below some rapids. When I picked her up, eggs were still pouring out of her. I looked upstream about 10 yards, and I saw at least three other salmon swimming around looking for a mate. They were trying fulfill their destiny before dying on the banks of the Lower Rouge River.

As chance would have it, Frank Walker pulled up after having done some steelhead fishing in the Huron River in Flat Rock. Walker is a longtime Wayne-Westland teacher, who has brought students down to the Rouge River to conduct water quality tests for years. Now a Plymouth resident, Walker grew up along the banks of the Lower Rouge in Wayne and knows it well. He has been documenting the annual salmon run for about a decade.

As we examined the dead salmon, he noticed that it didn’t have a clipped fin, meaning it was a naturally reproduced fish and not the product of a DNR fish hatchery. He’s convinced these fish have been successfully reproducing in the Rouge. You read that right — the Rouge River.

It kind of contradicts the old image of the Rouge, doesn’t it.

The Rouge watershed, probably the state’s most urban watershed, is also home to trout. The DNR has been planting brown trout in Johnson Creek, a cold-running tributary stream in western Wayne County and part of Washtenaw County, for a number of years. There are also rainbow trout thriving in the Lower Rouge River in Canton Township. A few of the small headwater streams also contain trout.

While many people had written the Rouge off as a dead river a long time ago, there has been an army of volunteers, spearheaded by Friends of the Rouge, who were not ready to write its obituary. Thanks to U.S. District Court Judge John Feikens, who has forced local governments to uphold the Clean Water Act, these volunteers have been buoyed by a commitment from local, county and state government to change the Rouge’s fortunes.

In the last two decades, millions of dollars have been invested in restoration projects. As a result, monitoring has continued to show improved water quality and overall ecosystem health. Dissolved oxygen levels are higher at most monitoring stations compared to five years ago. Bacteria counts are declining. There have been numerous habitat restoration and streambank stabilization projects conducted throughout the watershed. The presence of trout and salmon is proof that these efforts are starting to pay off.

As the river improves, some people are trying to promote the river’s recreational possibilities, including fishing and canoeing.

Friends of the Rouge recently led a group of about two dozen people on a canoe/kayak adventure along the Lower Rouge through Wayne and Westland under a canopy of beautiful fall colors. (If you want to watch a short video of the trip, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLtSFLcZeqQ on the Web.)

One of the people on that trip was Northville author Doc Fletcher, who penned the book Weekend Canoeing in Michigan: The Rivers, The Towns, The Taverns. He was impressed with the trip. He is doing a followup book about canoeing less-known Michigan rivers and is including a chapter about the Rouge River. A generation ago, that would have been unimaginable.

There is still a lot to do to restore the Rouge River, beginning with not destroying important headwater areas and wetlands in the upper reaches of the watershed. But the fact is our efforts are starting to pay off. Saving this river isn’t as farfetched a notion as it might have seemed years ago, when the river was on the brink of death.

This is what I and many others think about when the Rouge River is the topic of conversation.

Kurt Kuban is community editor for the Canton Observer. He welcomes feedback at kkuban@hometownlife.com or (734) 953-2164.