Stormwater Management & Erosion Control in Traverse City, MI

Michigan doesn't regulate soil erosion the way Southeastern states do. Instead of a state agency issuing permits directly, Part 91 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act (NREPA) hands enforcement to a County Enforcing Agency in each county, appointed by the county board and overseen by the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). Grand Traverse County has adopted its own Soil Erosion and Stormwater Runoff Control Ordinance to carry out that responsibility. A permit is generally required for any earth change disturbing one acre or more, or occurring within 500 feet of a lake or stream, and near the Boardman River or Grand Traverse Bay, the 500-foot trigger catches a lot of small projects.

Grand Traverse County also has an elected Drain Commissioner's office, operating under Michigan's Drain Code of 1956, a mechanism with no equivalent in the Southeastern coastal counties AUE Land has historically served. County drains are established, legal water conveyance systems, and a property inside a drain district can carry maintenance or assessment obligations tied to that drain, separate from any Part 91 permit on the same site.

If your property involves water beyond a standard stormwater basin, two more state programs come into play:

• Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, which requires an EGLE permit for dredging, filling, or structures on the bottomlands of a lake or stream, and for anything that interferes with natural flow
• Part 303, Wetlands Protection, which applies if the work touches a regulated wetland
• Grand Traverse County's local ordinance, which layers additional review on top of both when the site is inside the county

Grand Traverse Bay itself is under real water quality pressure. Excess sediment and phosphorus from stormwater runoff are the two threats the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay identifies as the leading causes of degraded bay water quality, and the bay's watershed drains close to 1,000 square miles across Antrim, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Leelanau counties. Traverse City is the largest municipality in that watershed, which puts extra scrutiny on any property whose drainage eventually reaches the bay.

The Boardman River, which flows through the middle of Traverse City, has been the site of one of the largest dam-removal restoration efforts in Michigan history. Three dams, Brown Bridge, Boardman, and Sabin, have come out since 2012, reconnecting roughly 160 miles of river and tributary habitat. Conservation groups increasingly use the name Boardman-Ottaway River, restoring the river's original Ojibwe and Odawa name alongside the more recent Boardman, though the change has not been formally finalized by federal naming authorities as of this writing. Whatever it's called, the restored, free-flowing river changes hydrology, bank stability, and flood behavior along its corridor in ways a still-dammed river wouldn't.

Then there's the season Southeast contractors never plan for. Michigan's winter freezes and thaws its soil repeatedly rather than freezing once and staying frozen, and the region's clay-heavy subsoils hold water tightly enough to make that movement worse. Frost heave shifts culverts and catch basins out of alignment over the winter. Spring melt then pushes a concentrated pulse of water through pipe joints and outfalls that spent months being stressed by ground movement, which is exactly when hidden damage turns into a visible failure.