Michigan's dirtiest body of water regains funds to resume pollution checks

A last-minute funding shortfall of $30,000 surfaced in late November and threatened to deep-six a key activity on the Rouge River — bug hunts. 

Despite the flippant sound of that, the bug hunts are vital for monitoring pollution threats, according to the nonprofit Friends of the Rouge.

Happily, after Friends of the Rouge launched online crowdfunding and the Free Press published a story about the shortfall, donations flowed from individuals, a foundation, a solid-waste company and Washtenaw County.

The cash came just in time for Friends of the Rouge to announce last week that the nonprofit group can resume its annual bug collection this month, although it will keep seeking more money to support bug hunts this spring and fall.

That means volunteers with Friends of the Rouge can rejoin a region-wide bug collection that’s also planned for the same day – Jan. 20 -- on the Huron and Clinton river systems, in nine counties altogether across southeast Michigan. The collection will involve hundreds of volunteers, like Carl Clark of Farmington Hills, who loves fly fishing and said he gained insights into outsmarting fish as well as a greater concern for the health of rivers by volunteering for the bug hunts over the last five years.

“Actually, the Rouge runs right in my backyard,” Clark said. He got involved by taking a class from Friends of the Rouge, hoping to learn more about the appearance of insects that look to fish like, well, a burger with everything. 

“That helped me when I go fishing because I can look at the bugs in the river and then I pick a fly that looks like that,” Clark said.

Apart from tweaking his angling chops, the class got Clark “wrapped up in the whole bug hunt,” he said.

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Since then, he’s become a team leader, “so I actually go into the river with a net and I scoop up material from the bottom, the sides, the bank – wherever the bugs are hanging out,” Clark said. He deposits his finds onshore in bins that a team of four to six other volunteers sorts through before the collections ultimately are analyzed by scientists at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, he said.

For the annual winter hunts each January, “the weather can be brutal, but everybody shows up – whole families – and nobody complains. I see kids doing this and enjoying it,” he said.

Friends of the Rouge has spent decades trying to revive the health of what arguably has been Michigan’s most polluted river – the Rouge – synonymous with heavy industry and the legendary Ford factory named after it. The bug hunts are part of that. Would-be volunteers can learn how to help by visiting www.therouge.org and scrolling down to click on “River Monitoring." 

The group’s volunteer coordinator, Sally Petrella, said the term “bug hunts” -- even though she uses it -- doesn’t do justice to the importance of collecting stoneflies, other insects and tiny creatures that live on river bottoms and in stream banks. The analysis of the collections, done three times a year, is essential for determining whether the water quality is improving or is newly threatened by key pollutants such as storm water running off pavement with residues of motor oil and other contaminants, pet wastes swept into sewers by heavy rains, and the liquified flow of landscapers' weed-and-feed after it's dissolved by rain and lawn sprinklers. The official name of the bug hunts connotes the underlying science: Benthic Macroinvertebrate Monitoring Program. (The “benthic” zone is the lowest area of a body of water.)

To fill the funding gap, individuals donors gave $3,300 through a CrowdRise internet campaign, Washtenaw County Water Resources Commission provided $2,200, the solid-waste company Waste Management donated $1,000 through an expedited grant, and the Erb Family Foundation gave $5,000, Petrella said. She’s hoping to raise another $12,000 to reinstate the annual spring and fall bug hunts on the Rouge River “at a bare bones level,” or an additional $22,000 to be fully funded for the year, Petrella said.

The Royal Oak-based Erb Family Foundation, named after a family that once owned lumber yards throughout the Midwest, has been a strong supporter of water-quality efforts throughout Michigan. Its donations to the Friends of the Rouge over the last nine years total $931,000, said Jodee Raines, vice president of programs at the foundation.

The foundation gives away nearly $12 million a year and about 40% of that goes to aiding the Great Lakes and associated inland bodies of water, Raines said. The bug hunts are an important indicator of whether the residents of southeast Michigan are helping -- or hurting -- the quality of the water around them, she said.

“I cannot stress enough the impact that everyday actions by everyday individuals have on our Great Lakes. 

“How we treat the land in our own backyards affects our local waterways, and our local waterways are the feeders to our Great Lakes,” she said.

Contact blaitner@freepress.com