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“This is a ticking time bomb,” said Marc Gaden, spokesperson for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, a U.S-Canadian fishery management entity that is leading the project and is a party to the lawsuit. “The city needs to know, one way or another, how to proceed.”
FishPass is the capstone to a decades-long effort to restore fish habitat on the Boardman River, which flows through Traverse City. After three dam removals upstream, city leaders had planned to replace the last remaining dam on the Boardman an old mill dam in downtown Traverse City with a new barrier.
That barrier would include a research facility where scientists would test technology designed to allow some fish species to pass upstream beyond the dam, while locking others downstream.
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A judge ruled Thursday that the $19.3 million project, which would allow scientists to test technology that allows some fish to pass through a dam on the Boardman River while others are kept out, can’t proceed without voters’ consent.
The Union Street Dam is the last impediment to a free-flowing Boardman River. Downstream of the dam is a popular fishing spot.
Credit Lexi Krupp / IPR News
A five-foot-long female sturgeon was spotted this week in the Boardman River in Traverse City. Fishery experts say there s ideal spawning habitat for the species upstream, but the large fish can’t get there there’s a dam in the way.
The proposed FishPass project at the Union Street Dam could allow native fish like sturgeon to swim up the Boardman River, while keeping invasives at bay, says Marc Gaden, from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.