Oakland County watersheds

By Mark H. Stowers

Most people, it’s safe to assume, have no real understanding of watersheds and the critical role they play in the quality of water we rely on, despite the fact that the five watersheds in Oakland County sit at the headwaters for major rivers that run through this and neighboring counties.

Watersheds are a land area where precipitation of all shapes and sizes collect and eventually flow into a major stream or river. But these simple yet complex series of ditches, ponds, collection sites, small and large streams are of vital importance to the ecology and economy where they are located. There are 63 major watersheds in Michigan alone, and another 267 sub-watersheds are connected within. These networks of streams and rivers eventually make their way to one of the Great Lakes, where 20 percent of the world's freshwater is located.

­­­“In simple terms, a watershed is the area where all rainwater falling on a certain area of land will come together,” said Melissa DiSimone, executive director of Michigan Lakes and Streams Association. “Understanding where water comes from and where it goes is critical for water management planning as well as planning for mitigation should the water come from points of heavy nutrient loading, like farmland for example. Many rural areas do not plan for stormwater management and they end up with flooding and unfiltered runoff entering lakes and streams.”

The functions of Oakland County watersheds include providing drinking water for local communities, supporting a wide variety of wildlife and plant species, contributing to biodiversity and offering opportunities for outdoor activities such as fishing, boating, hiking and birdwatching.

Watersheds play a crucial role in managing stormwater runoff, reducing flood risks and filtering pollutants before they reach larger bodies of water. Wetlands and natural areas within watersheds help absorb excess water during storms, reducing flood risks downstream. Healthy watersheds can enhance property values and support local economies through tourism and recreational industries. A healthy watershed helps create real estate value as well. Watersheds support diverse habitats for plants, animals and aquatic life, contributing to overall biodiversity.

Dr. Katherine L. Martin, associate professor in the North Carolina State University Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, explained that all watersheds are connected. “Your local watershed is nested into sequentially larger watersheds, the levels depend on how far you are from the common drainage point,” Martin said. “Your local watershed would be adjacent to another local watershed which is likely part of the same nested watershed at some point. Watersheds are defined as draining to a common outlet.”

Overall, Oakland County's watersheds are essential natural resources that require careful management and conservation efforts to ensure their continued benefits to both the environment and human communities.

Oakland County’s major watersheds include the Flint River Watershed, Clinton River Watershed, the Rouge River Watershed, The Shiawassee Watershed and the Huron River Watershed. There are two sub-watersheds as well – the Stony Creek and Paint Creek Watersheds.

These watersheds have layers of federal, state, county and local organizations that monitor, maintain and oversee the overall management of each. Jim Nash, Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner, stays busy making sure those in Oakland County are protected and monitored.

“There's five watersheds whose headwaters are in Oakland County. So, everything that we do in Oakland County ends up in one of those watersheds in the river that they service, then eventually in the Great Lakes.”

He further explained, “Both the Great Lakes and our own water resources in the county, the 1,200 or so lakes, rivers and streams we have here are protected. In most counties, we're called drain commissioners. Here we do way more than drains.”

His job title began with drains but now includes much, much more.

“That's why we're water resources commissioners. Originally this state was a backwater. The original point of drains was to drain fields for agricultural use. Once we built cities, we still had that issue. We're doing everything we can to protect the water we have.”

He noted that “both separated storm sewers and combined sewers go into our watersheds. The ones that are separated go right in without any kind of treatment at all. Whatever comes off a road or a parking lot goes into the nearest body of water and whatever carries with it. There’s chemicals and all kinds of different things. Oil and brake dust and all kinds of different stuff that come off and end up in our waterways. We try to protect that doing a lot of different things.”

With each watershed being massive – each one is comprised of more than 900-plus square miles – massive storms create massive problems.

“The biggest problem that we're going to be seeing from climate change in our lifetimes and after are going to be heavy extreme weather storms,” Nash explained. “We've already experienced this in Oakland County and Michigan. But they're just going to keep happening and eventually getting worse. We're trying to help communities prepare for that. We have storm drains that lead to systems. But if we can limit what gets into those storm drains that's less pollution that can happen. And it's less likelihood of flooding in the longer term.”

One way to limit pollution is to create and add green infrastructure, such as rain gardens, rain barrels and using bioswales in large pavement areas like parking lots.

“In old-fashioned large parking lots you'd see this hump of grass with a curb around it and a half-dead tree in it. That was just to break up the pavement, but it doesn't really do any good for containing water. Whatever water hits that parking lot goes right in the storm drain. Instead, we have bioswales, which instead of a hump are a ditch kind of dug into the ground six, eight, 10 inches. You still have curb around it but the water can get through the curb and then the water will gather there instead of going right into the storm drain. It's a really good way of storing that storm water.”

Any productive way to slow down any type of precipitation is helpful. Rain barrels collect water for later use. Rain gardens help water absorb naturally and slowly instead of rapidly running off the land causing flooding and other high water issues. The Rain Smart Program, provided by the Water Commissioner’s Office, is a subsidy program for those interested in green infrastructure projects.

“A lot of communities are doing that (rain barrels and rain gardens); we're helping them do that,” Nash said. “We have a rebate program in the George W. Kuhn area. There's no lakes down there technically, but so there's a possibility to do that around the counties, is help people do that kind of green infrastructure, keep that water, storm water, on their properties. That way it's going to cause less pollution downstream.”

He noted, “Native plants in native rain gardens have much deeper roots, 10, 20, 30-feet deep roots, so they can really pull a lot of water down. And even a rain barrel, can store 50 gallons of rain off your roof. Then you can use it to water your garden. Other ways of doing that include permeable pavement on roads and bioswales. There's lots that can be done and more and more communities are doing their ordinances to encourage both residential and commercial folks to do that.”

Nash works with each watershed council and group.

“The Clinton River Watershed Council is a great, long-term knowledgeable group. I've worked with them for many years now and (are) a great source. Friends of the Rouge River is another really big source and the other biggest one in Oakland County would be the Huron River Council. So those are the three that really do our most at-risk active in Oakland County. The other two are the Flint River and the Shiawassee River, but that's kind of very up top of the county, so they're a much smaller part of what we do. But we work with them also. Each one is volunteer-oriented and they do a lot of work around cleaning up the trash and obstructions in the waterways. They do a lot of really great work. And they get a lot of funding to help communities do that same work.”

The most basic piece of a watershed is nature itself. When it rains in the woods, “almost all of it is absorbed into the ground. It really has very little runoff when there's not any kind of disturbance of the nature,” Nash explained. “When you get to even things like mowed lawns, a mowed lawn, the roots are only as deep as the grass is tall. The point of what roots do for you is it pulls the water into the ground. It goes into the ground rather than runoff. So, grass is not very effective. Once that first inch is taken up, then it just runs off like it was concrete. But where there are natural tall grasses, native plants, even trees, that allows much more of the water to drain into the ground.”

An important fight for everyone is to help preserve watersheds. Decades ago, both the Clinton and Huron rivers were extremely polluted. “All their water life was dying. There were very few invertebrates or fish or anything in any of them,” Nash explained. “Starting in the late '50s, we got federal dollars, and those watershed groups did a tremendous amount of volunteer work. And now these are wonderful rivers for fishing, there's plenty of wildlife. It's been a dramatic change in about 40 years. And that's what these groups have done to bring it up to where it is now. They want to make sure it stays that way. All of our local governments work with them, and my office does to make sure that it's done in a way that's going to keep this sustainable for many generations.”

Nash had several suggestions for anyone to help Michigan watersheds.

“For one, never dump anything down a storm drain. That's really bad. And if you see somebody, we have a pollution hotline that folks can call. That you know if you ever see anybody doing anything like that or if you see an oily sheen on a screen or anything just report that because we can investigate it, clean it up and then if we can find the responsible parties, go after them.”

In addition, soil erosion is a really big issue locally. Nash’s office works with 45 communities across Oakland County with erosion control.

“Anytime there's construction of over an acre we have to have those stilt fences – the black fabric fences,” he said. “That's to stop the erosion from getting into the nearest lake, river and stream. That's our biggest cause of pollution in our lakes, rivers and streams in this region is erosion. So, it's very important that we control erosion and anytime people see open soil it should be reported so that we can control that.”

Another danger to watersheds is pesticides and fertilizers.

“Any time you're using a pesticide or fertilizer, when it rains, it's washed right into whatever the storm drain is. If you live by a lake, it goes right into the lake. That's what causes algae blooms and bacteria and things that close beaches. You've got to be very careful of that.”

To help combat that problem, “there's something called riparian buffers, where you build basically a rain garden along the shore. Any fertilizers off your lawn go into the ground instead of into the lake. It's really a very important thing.”

Other dangers to watershed include pet waste and septic systems.

“That kind of bacteria gets into things and then it can grow. You don't want septic systems to fail because that causes pollution downstream. One of the signs is mushy ground where it shouldn't be expected. And if you see an oily sheen or a smell. That's something you can report. And then just clean it up. Whenever you mow grass, heavy leaves, if that gets in the storm drains, it can back up the water. That's another thing you've got to watch out for.”

The Oakland County Water Commissioner’s office has 380 employees and an $800 million budget. The phone number to report any pollution or any threats to a watershed is 248.858.0931.

Covering a significant portion of Oakland County including Pontiac, Rochester and Auburn Hills, the Clinton River Watershed serves as a primary drainage system for the large urban and suburban area, influencing water and flood control measures. Cole Pachucki is the development and communications manager at the Clinton River Watershed Council.

“The Clinton River Watershed Council serves the Clinton River watersheds themselves, which are drainage basins,” Pachucki said. “All of the water inside the Clinton River Watershed Council drains to the Clinton River and then flows east towards and into Lake St. Clair.”

He noted that each tributary has a sub-watershed. “The Clinton River North Branch, the headwaters area, the main Clinton River branch, all have their own sub-watersheds. The Clinton River watershed is 760 square miles and it includes pieces of five counties. The majority of Oakland County and Macomb County are included in that, but we also have Wayne, Lapeer and St. Clair counties with sections in the watershed,” Pachucki said.

The population within the watershed is 1.5 million people. And there's hundreds of miles of waterways within the watershed itself.

“As you drive through Birmingham, through Rochester Hills, through Sterling Heights – every time in southeast Michigan you cross over a drain or stream, there's a little ‘hours to protect’ sign on it that says what the waterbody is to try and connect people back to those waterways,” he said. “It lets people know that even if you're not living on the Clinton, your waterway may very well be flowing into the Clinton right near where you are because all of this water is connected, whether it be through groundwater or through directly flowing in and out of the same areas.”

Pachucki explained, “Early development also happened around waterways as a form of transportation, as a form of power for industry. Now we see a myriad of parks lined up along the river to ensure that our residents have access to recreation, whether it be fishing or wading or paddling or just spending time in a beautiful green space.”

When considering watersheds, it's important to think about and learn about the history of the watershed as a whole.

“Southeast Michigan contains about 50 percent of the population of the entire state. And the state, on average, is just about 50 percent impervious surfaces. Because of all of the development and infrastructure required for people to live, parking lots and roads and rooftops and buildings are all necessary to support our life, but it displaces a lot of water. And it means that water can't soak back into the ground,” he said. “It's funneled instead, 55 percent of the time, into storm drains. Rapid development in this area and a lack of clean water regulations 100 years ago and before just meant that this area was being flooded. It was developed a lot faster than anyone expected and at the time there was a lack of clean water regulations protecting our local lakes, rivers and streams within the watershed, so the Clinton River other rivers in the area, they all suffered from the effects of industry and quick development and became quite polluted and quite dirty”

When the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) did a fish survey in the 1960s of the Clinton River, they did not find a single living fish in the entire stretch of the river because of the pollution that the river had experienced, according to Pachucki.

“Local governments and organizations after that point quickly started to see the need for some kind of protection for local watersheds and local waterways, because if it can't sustain life, it's just a detriment to your economy and your recreation and the environment,” Pachucki said.

The Clinton River Watershed Council has been a nonprofit for just more than 50 years, formed in 1972. It’s beginning as an association of local governments who saw and understood the need. “We were formed under the authority of the Michigan local rivers Management Act of 1964. More recently, in 1994, the council reorganized into a non-profit. The Michigan Clean Water Act designated the Clinton River watershed as an area of concern, which means that there were eight beneficial use impairments, eight criteria of things that needed to be fixed before the watershed as a whole was no longer an environmental concern anymore,” Pachucki said.

Since that time, the Clinton River Watershed Council, community partners and local governments, as well as counties officials have all been diligently working to protect, enhance celebrate the Clinton River, its watershed and Lake St. Clair.

“They recently did a survey of the Clinton River, and now there's more than 84 identified living fish species in the watershed. More than $40 million has been put into the watershed just under that area of concern designation for those beneficial use impairments, those criteria of things that needed to get fixed before it was no longer an area of concern anymore,” he explained.

The watershed organization helps manage stormwater.

“When precipitation as it comes down, the state of Michigan requires that everybody is permitted if they're going to be utilizing storm drains,” Pachucki said. “Part of our budget every year is working with communities to educate on stormwater runoff and the use of these storm drains and coordinate the state's permitting or permitting with the state for these various other groups. Communities work with us to fulfill their education needs and to work to consider stormwater and make sure that everybody's continuing to share education about some orders. That's a chunk of our budget. Part of our budget is memberships with communities. Part of this is restoration. We get grants in and then do restoration work for monitoring work throughout the watershed.”

Water quality monitoring is performed each spring and fall with 100 to 150 volunteers taking part. They survey nearly 50 sites throughout the watershed’s waterway.

“The Clinton River and Stony and Paint Creek on the Red Run on various drains on Galloway Creek. We're out doing monitoring with volunteers to gauge the overall health of the watershed. Monitor stream conditions,” he said. “The information that we gather informs future investment. So that's all reported back to the state. And that data then is used by groups like us, the state, other non-profits, private groups to continue to invest.”

He noted “the biggest threat to the watershed as a whole right now, the biggest challenge that we face is stormwater. In the last couple of days, we've received some pretty serious storms. Because there's all of these impervious surfaces, it means that the river systems in our waterways, the water that falls is not reintroduced slowly because it's hitting these impervious surfaces and being funneled into storm drains. It is then immediately flowing into the rivers. When we got a rain (July) 12th or 13th, water levels rose at the Auburn Hills stream gauge by nearly four feet. And downstream in the Sterling Heights gauge rose by more than seven feet.

“It not only quickly goes into the river but as it's flowing over parking lots and roads, it's picking up sediment and salt and trash and debris,” Pachucki continued. “It’s carrying that right into our local waterways. If we were to say that there's one big threat to the watershed as it stands right now, it's definitely stormwater.”

Basic steps as just picking up trash in a parking lot can ultimately help a watershed survive.

“If everybody's doing that, you're keeping that out of the drain clogging up problems and eventually putting it in the Clinton River,” he said. “All of our waterways in the area could be benefited in a couple different ways by regular people. People could volunteer to clean up trash and debris. Another way that people can get involved is by installing green infrastructure on their property. What that means is using nature-based solutions to help capture water on your own property, therefore alleviating that impact on the storm drains and the local water systems. If you add a rain barrel to your property, if you plant using native plants, if you plant a tree, all of those things are examples of green infrastructure. That can help track water on your property and slowly reintroduce it to the groundwater so that the system isn't all rushed with that stormwater all at one time. Everybody can do something regardless of your skill level or ability.”

The toxic threat for watersheds is always a reality.

“Just this year, there was an electroplating plant in Macomb that was under a change of ownership and for whatever reason, a pipe burst in the building and this electroplating plant still had materials that were using electroplating and all of that got washed down the storm drain,” Pachucki said. “And those things can have a huge impact to local wildlife, especially aquatic life electroplating chemicals get into places like Bear Creek. It can affect fish, it can affect macro invertebrates, it can decimate the entire health of that waterway. There’s a lot businesses and local governments can do to protect our local waterways, is just so incredibly important.”

Watersheds are where drinking water begins.

“All through groundwater or through flow, water is all connected in some way, shape or form. Now, no one gets their drinking water from the Clinton River but depending on where you're at, you can look up where you get your local water from. Our water flows from the headwaters of the Clinton, like the Waterford area, flows 81 miles downstream to Lake St. Clair then eventually it makes it to Lake Erie,” Pachucki noted.

The Rouge River Watershed includes parts of Oakland County, primarily in the southeastern portion, along with Wayne County. It supports a diverse range of habitats and wildlife, provides recreational opportunities and is important for stormwater management in urban areas. The Rouge River Watershed has four main branches, 400 lakes, impoundments and ponds over three counties with 508 miles of tributaries including 127 river miles. More than 1.35 million people, 65 species of fish and two endangered fish species are in the 467 square miles of watershed that has 45 uncontrolled combined sewer outfalls.

The watershed has been an active area of concern since 1985 and over $1 billion dollars has been invested in its cleanup. At one point, the river was so polluted that it actually caught fire in 1969. Over its lifespan the Friends of the Rouge River organization has had more than 62,000 Rouge River rescue volunteers.

Lauren Eaton, the monitoring manager at Friends of the Rouge, has been with the organization since April 2023. “A watershed is an area of land in which rainfall and snowmelt is channeled and drains into a body of water. They are located everywhere. We all live in a watershed,” Eaton said “If you are on land, you could think about it this way – rainwater that lands within a river's watershed will flow down toward that river; rainwater that lands outside a river's watershed will flow into a different river. This is largely based on elevation and geomorphology but watershed boundaries are right next to each other in most cases.”

Eaton explained the problems of toxins in relation to watersheds.

“If the toxins were on land, they could end up in the river from rainfall or snowmelt, picking up the toxins which then would flow into the river. The toxins could also have the potential to infiltrate into groundwater, which would also flow toward lower elevation areas but much more slowly than surface water,” she said.

In protecting watersheds, Eaton says its best to look at the bigger picture.

“It's important to think regionally since everything in a watershed is connected. The Rouge River watershed drains 467 square miles into the Detroit River. This includes 47 municipalities and 1.35 million people,” she explained. ”Preserving and conserving green space is the most critical, especially for urbanized watersheds. Undeveloped land is the most important piece to keeping watersheds healthy. Additionally, our organization promotes green infrastructure, which can include adding green space such as a rain garden. Rain gardens soak up water running off roofs, driveways, walkways and other hard surfaces which helps to reduce flooding. It helps filter some of the chemicals on land such as lawn fertilizer before it gets into the river. The regional perspective of thinking about capturing rainwater upstream to help reduce flooding downstream is so important.”

The Friends of the Rouge is constantly working to maintain and improve the Rouge River.

“We monitor the health of the creatures that live in and around the river – fish, frogs, crayfish, benthic macroinvertebrates. Our frog and toad survey is a community-based program that anyone can participate in and runs from the end of winter until mid-summer. Our benthic macroinvertebrate surveys (spring, fall winter) are also volunteer programs and our next bug hunt is on October 12,” she said. “We have projects monitoring invasive species, a recent project monitoring water quality – specifically chloride (road salt) levels throughout the Rouge, a culvert survey which will let us gauge how well fish can move throughout the river.”

She noted they work with schools through the Rouge Education Project which gets kids out learning and interacting with the river.

“We have a restoration program which promotes green infrastructure through rain garden education and installation and we've done tree plantings and native habitat restoration in the past,” Eaton said. “We have a trails program which encourages paddling along the lower branch of the Rouge.”

The Huron River Watershed primarily spans across several counties, including parts of northern Oakland County. The Huron River Watershed is 905 square miles. It is crucial for providing drinking water to local communities, supporting recreational activities such as kayaking and fishing maintaining ecological health. Daniel Brown has been a watershed planner with the Huron River Watershed Council since 2006. He noted the watershed leads to the Huron River and beyond.

“All that drains to the Huron River and eventually finds its way down to Lake Erie at Lake Erie Metro Park,” Brown said. “There's a lot of man-made channels there and it sort of gets split into a delta at the mouth of the river. It's right there at the base of where the Detroit River also comes in.

“We work with the municipalities in the watershed to help them comply with stormwater regulations. But then also work with them to improve their stormwater management for the sake of water quality and its ultimate impact on the river,” he explained.

“The municipalities are members and they have representatives that sit on our board, but we don't have any authority over them. The cities and some other non-city municipalities have a full jurisdiction over their stormwater infrastructure but they are regulated under the Clean Water Act. The Environmental Protection Agency then gives that authority to the state's EGLE department – Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. They get a permit to release stormwater to the water resources – in our case, the Huron River.”

Brown explained the basics of the watershed is that “it's just water comes together and goes somewhere and we take care of it along the way. That's, in a nutshell, The kinds of things that we're trying to help the cities work on are to try to rethink the way that they design systems. And the cities themselves are also working with developers to come into their communities and try to get them to do work on developments that are very considerate of the impacts that stormwater has when you do a development.”

For example, a new housing development begins and one of the first things built is a detention pond for all the stormwater to run off into that pond. Brown also noted the use of green infrastructure that Oakland County's Nash explained.

When there is dense development, underground projects can help, such as porous caving.

“It's concrete and asphalt that has holes in it that can then allow water to go into the ground. It either gets stored under there in some kind of structure, or it can infiltrate into the groundwater,” he said.

Each green infrastructure projects seeks to “mimic the natural system, the way that natural things go. The reason for that is that it slows the rainwater down. When you have these hardened surfaces, they send all that rainwater immediately to the streams. That creates this huge volume that can rip out some of the banks or the bottom of the streams,” Brown explained.

Major toxic pollutant events are a danger to watersheds. Brown is always on the lookout for chemical spills from industries and businesses.

“We do have a few major pollution issues that we're working on,” he said. “Across the entire watershed, the PFAS (polyfluoroalkyl substances) contamination. PFAS is a set of chemicals that are all in the same class that are made in a lot of different manufacturing processes. They're starting to get into our waterways, and new research is showing that they can be cancer-causing. And there's a company in Oakland County called Tribar that was a major, major source of those contaminants that was discovered relatively recently, in the last five years, that we worked with the state to get them and to put in better controls to make sure that those pollutants stayed on site and weren't finding their way into the water system.”

He also explained the company had a separate release that was intentional on the part of a disgruntled employee. “That was a different chemical, trivalent hexachrome. These are chrome plating byproducts. There was a big release that when it first was found out – it looked like it might be a huge amount that could contaminate the water system. It turned out that a lot of that was filtered out by the Wixom's wastewater treatment plant before it got to the river, so it turned out not to be as big a problem, but it certainly was an issue with this dirty company that had very lax safety controls and measures,” Brown noted. “They were shut down for a while. They had to fix their system so it couldn't happen again, but they're back up online and doing their thing. It does point to a problem that we're working on. The state had the ability to put the cost of cleanup onto the polluters who release that kind of pollution under previous administrations. But now the state can no longer do that.”

The Huron River Watershed Council has been pushing for the state legislature to pass polluter pay legislation. “They are in the process of pushing it through and that would help to provide a resource and put the cost back on these kinds of dirty companies instead of putting it on the backs of taxpayers,” Brown said.

Stony Creek is a Clinton River subwatershed. The Stony Creek area watershed contributes to the overall health of the Clinton River system, providing a habitat for wildlife and recreational opportunities at Stony Creek Metropark as well as assisting in flood control efforts.

The Paint Creek Watershed is located in northern Oakland County, encompassing areas around Rochester and Lake Orion. It supports diverse aquatic and terrestrial habitats, provides scenic beauty and is essential for water quality management and recreational activities such as hiking and birdwatching.

One major watershed is in the northern most part of Oakland County – the Shiawassee River Watershed. Liz Roxberry, executive director of The Friends of the Shiawassee River, has been on the job for a year. The group was founded in 1996 by volunteers who wanted to put together river clean-up events in Owosso. The group hosts annual river clean ups, organizes river workdays that focus on removing invasive species posing a threat to the river’s ecosystem and works to encourage reforestation of the Shiawassee riverbanks with vegetation buffers and more. The Shiawassee Watershed is quite large and a bit different from others.

“It depends on which angle you're looking at it. The Shiawassee is pretty unique because the basin feeds the Flint River. Its headwaters are in Huron,” Roxberry said. “The basin itself is about 1,200 square miles. It’s the only river in Michigan that flows north. When you're looking at the basin, you've got to kind of reverse it because it doesn't flow south like most of our rivers. And because the Shiawassee River is predominantly stormwater-fed, we've got some unique challenges that face this river, particularly where stormwater runoff is concerned. A lot of work goes into not only protecting the watershed, making sure that it's clean.

“We have one of the largest river cleanups, collective river cleanups in the state. We have a couple hundred volunteers that head out across designated areas on the river. They do shoreline cleanup. They get in the river. It's pretty high and fast right now. So, of course, using caution, they're getting into the river to pull out debris. We work with the Shiawassee County Health Department and the (Oakland County) Road Commission to recycle tires that used to be used for shoreline stabilization.”

Roxberry explained the group has several projects in place across the watershed.

“We do everything from shoreline work to debris removal and then we also work with our municipal partners on big projects like the dam removal, Corona Dam Removal, Chi-Town Dam Removal,” she said.

The watersheds across Michigan are all interconnected, according to Roxberry.

“Because all of our water is universal and so even water that is here in Shiawassee County, if it's particulating down into groundwater, it could end up showing up in a neighboring basin. All of our watersheds are connected but we try and break them out by district for management. Michigan has such unique topography, has such unique, really diverse ecosystems. Watersheds are really just a way to define an area for management. We have the Shiawassee Conservation District, which works very, very hard on managing our watershed with our drain commissioners and some of our other stakeholders, like EGLE. When we look at the watershed, we look at the challenges that are presented here and how we can best address those. And they become part of our watershed management plan. But certainly, we recognize that our affiliated and adjoining watersheds. The role of the Organization for the Friends of Shiawassee is caring, sharing enjoying, where we are promoting how we care for the river through stewardship, conservation practices, how we share the river through education and initiatives around educating, not only about the environment, but also about recreation and responsible usage. And that's our sharing and our enjoyment aspect. Enjoying the river, getting encouraged by it. And we're encouraging people to get out and use the river and make a relationship with the river while being responsible in doing it.”

Another northern Oakland County watershed, the Flint River watershed, encompasses 1,358 square miles, is 142 miles long and spans over seven counties. The Flint River Water Coalition promotes citizen stewardship and works to provide members and volunteers with the resources needed to help protect and maintain the Flint River. The organization is comprised of individuals, businesses, community organizations and local units of government sharing a vision of a healthier Flint River Watershed.

“We envision a day when the future of our drinking water is secure and the integrity of the Flint River is protected. We believe that all people should have access to the river for recreation, swimming fishing as well as the economic value it provides to our communities,” from their website.

“The Flint Water Crisis created lifelong challenges for Flint residents and lead contamination in the city’s drinking water supply has many questioning the quality and health of the Flint River. The Flint River is a vibrant ecosystem that supports a growing population of species such as eagles and ospreys, who live along and hunt in the Flint River. Recreational opportunities in and along the Flint River are abundant. We’re seeing higher numbers of users each and every year. Local support for the protection, promotion improvement of the river has never been stronger.”

Oakland County watersheds are vital natural resources that provide numerous benefits to the environment and economic quality of life for residents. Protecting these watersheds requires coordinated efforts from local, state and federal stakeholders to ensure sustainable use and conservation for future generations.