The Huron River is the central natural feature of the City. More than ten miles of this river are located within the City limits, traversing the City from northwest to southeast.
The following creeks are tributaries of the Huron River within the City of Ann Arbor:
Allens' Creek
Fleming Creek
Honey Creek
Mallett's Creek
Miller's Creek
Swift Run Creek
Traver Creek
This creek is of historic importance in Ann Arbor, because it bears the name of John Allens, the first European to settle permanently in this area and bequeath the name of Ann Arbor on the area. Unfortunately, as the city has developed around Allens Creek, the creek historically suffered tremendous floods causing a great deal of damage to the infrastructure along its banks. Gradually, it became interred for gradually increasing stretches and now this creek is almost entirely underground and operates more as a storm drain than a real stream in most areas. However, flooding in the area continues to be a problem.
What the City of Ann Arbor is doing
- The Allen's Creek Stormwater Initiative is a community response to pollution, flooding and the unique challenges we face in Allen's Creekshed (Map). The initiatives will identify and implement cost-effective, practical solutions. Individual efforts such as rain gardens / rain barrels will be explored, as well as infrastructure projects: bio-infiltration, constructed wetlands, porous pavement, mechanical treatment, and above and below-ground detention. This project is led by the City of Ann Arbor and the Washtewnaw County Drain Comissioner.
- Allen Creek Greenway Task Force Report - This 2007 report outlines goals and objectives for establishing open space and pathway generally followin
The Fleming Creek Watershed is the largest in the Middle Huron Initiative area, covering a total of 30.8 square miles. The Creek's main stem is 12.6 miles long, flowing southwest from Salem Township and is joined by a number of smaller tributaries. Until recently, the land in the Fleming Creek watershed was used primarily for agriculture, with only occasional residential use and some open space owned by the University of Michigan. In the past decade, however, the development of large homes and subdivisions has resulted in the clearing and grading of hundreds of acres; thus contributing to erosion and the accumulation of fine sediment in the creek bed. Additional commercial and industrial developments have also grown up in the Fleming Creek basin, further exacerbating these problems. Additional housing developments are planned, which could cause additional degradation of the creek.
State of Our Environment
Overall, Fleming Creek is still in very good condition. Compared with other basins in our section of the Huron watershed, Fleming Creek is relatively undeveloped and the mostly natural state of its channel and floodplain allows it to maintain cool temperatures and fairly good habitat for a rich variety of aquatic taxa.
The Honey Creek watershed, located almost entirely in Scio Township, covers twenty-three square miles and is the second largest basin in the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area. The main stem of the creek is about 9 miles long and flows mostly northeast from the headwaters in farmland, through rural residences, into residential and commercial development, before finally reaching the Huron River. Although the land within the watershed is primarily agricultural, it is becoming urbanized rapidly. Since 1980, 11% of its area has been developed (compared to only 3% in Fleming Creek's basin).
State of Our Environment
Overall, Honey Creek appears to be in good condition, although the diversity of its macroinvertebrate population is below average. In the past few years, Pall Life Sciences (PLS) received a MDEQ permit to discharge treated water to Honey Creek which empties into the Huron River upstream from the City’s water intake. PLS now discharges up to 1300 gallons of water per minute. The streambed, however, is predominately soft sediment and silt, with a distinct lack of hard material for aquatic insects to secure themselves on. The poor quality of in-stream habitat may account for the low macroinvertebrate population. In 2003, the US Geological Survey partnered with the City of Ann Arbor to begin studying our regional watershed. The first study focused on Honey Creek and identified gaining and losing sections of the stream. The report is expected to be released in late 2004.
Malletts Creekshed is eleven-square miles in size. The creek is located in the City of Ann Arbor and Pittsfield Township. Over the last four decades, the area surrounding the creekshed has undergone extensive development of shopping malls, housing, and parking lots.
The Malletts Creek Restoration Plan was developed to address the water quality problems of the creekshed and to meet the MDEQ mandate to improve the biota of the creekshed through a 50% phosphorus reduction in the Huron River. Furthermore, the plan was developed to provide structural repairs to prevent further channel and bank erosions. The Restoration Plan was developed through a cooperative effort of Washtenaw County Drain Commissioner (WCDC), City of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield Township and residents of the creekshed. The Restoration Plan recommends various projects and efforts to be completed over a number of years at an estimated cost of $19M. The restoration plan was accepted by the City Council, which directed the establishment of a Malletts Creekshed Coordinating Committee (MCCC). The implementation of the Restoration Plan is being coordinated through the WCDC office.
The Restoration Plan lists the reconstruction of Brown Park Pond as the single most important project to the restoration of Malletts Creek. Reconstruction of Brown Park Pond is currently estimated at $3.5 million. A grant in the amount of $195,557 was received for the design of the reconstruction of Brown Park Pond and was matched with $68,301 from Pittsfield Township and the City of Ann Arbor. MDEQ has awarded a grant of $1,250,946 toward construction. The design is currently under contract.[16] The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers is considering funding and managing the pond’s reconstruction, and may provide up to $1.5 million in funding. This would leave about $750,000 to be funded locally.
State of Our Environment
Several problems include increased peak flow levels and velocity of the creek resulting in bank erosion, high phosphorus levels, sedimentation, increased water temperature, destruction of bank vegetation and degraded stream beds.
What the City of Ann Arbor is doing
- Malletts Creek Restoration Project - To reduce pollution, flooding and erosion, Janis Bobrin, Washtenaw County Drain Commissioner, has recently initiated a restoration planning effort to help repair and restore Malletts. The City of Ann Arbor and Pittsfield Township are partners.
Millers Creek runs along Huron Parkway from Plymouth Road to the Huron River. An intensive two-year study of the existing conditions of the Creek and its watershed was conducted from 2001 to 2003 and was funded by Pfizer Inc., a major private landowner in the watershed. The study was innovative in that volunteers were used to perform much of the monitoring of the creek, including streambed morphology, flows and other parameters such as temperature, pH and conductivity. The Millers Creek Watershed Improvement Plan was completed in May 2004. This plan will be a blueprint for mitigating the existing problems of erratic stormwater flows, excessive soil erosion and sedimentation, and high nutrient loads.
State of Our Environment
Highlights of the Millers Creek Watershed Improvement Plan and previous studies revealed the following:
- FLOW: Millers Creek has an unnaturally dramatic pattern of flow. When it rains, water rises quickly in the creek due to rapid runoff. During these rain events, the force of the flow erodes the banks and tumbles rocks on the stream bottom making the creek inhospitable to most aquatic life. To make matters worse, when it’s not raining, the baseflow of Millers Creek doesn’t come close to filling its deeply-eroded channel. This leads to extremely slow flows and shallow depths that further stress aquatic organisms.
- WATER QUALITY: Millers Creek carries high loads of phosphorus into the Huron River, where the excess phosphorus leads to nuisance algal blooms that degrade the reservoirs of the River including Gallup Pond, Ford Lake and Belleville Lake. Millers Creek has high bacteria levels and both the highest and the lowest conductivity levels seen in the entire Huron system. Streams normally have readings close to 500 μS, the level in groundwater. The conductivity of the water in Millers Creek below Plymouth Road ranges from 166 μS (comparable to rainwater) to 34,700 μS (which approaches the conductivity of saltwater). Factors causing these unusual conductivity levels have not been explained.
• PLANTS: There are many sites in the watershed that have woodlands, forested wetlands, and extensive streamside vegetation. Such natural areas need to be protected because they help stabilize creek flow and benefit wildlife. The areas are identified in the following six sections.
• INDICATOR SPECIES: Most of Millers Creek is in poor condition. A creek’s benthic community is often a reliable indicator of the condition of the creek. A creek in good condition supports a diverse benthic community that includes several kinds of insects that are sensitive to organic pollution. However, most of the eight study sites in Millers Creek have only a few types of aquatic insects, the ones that are able to live in poor conditions (such as fluctuating flows and poor water chemistry). There is only one site that supports several types of sensitive insects.
• A SPECIAL PLACE: The headwaters of a tributary to Millers Creek flow through a glen on the east side of Narrow Gauge Way where the native trees and wildflowers have a high floristic index. In addition, this tributary has a high quality aquatic invertebrate community only found in unpolluted streams.
Source: Storming Down a Lovely Valley: the Millers Creek Report, (p. 9)
What the City of Ann Arbor is doing
More Information
The watershed of this creek is unusually narrow, measuring only two miles wide and five miles long. Swift Run has no tributaries feeding into it. This creek flows through a diversity of environments, including wooded wetlands, through the Ann Arbor landfill, and under I-94 and US 23, but overall, it is one of the more urbanized watersheds of the area and has been for many decades.
State of Our Environment
Erosion, sedimentation and litter are problems along the entire length of this stream. Mediocre habitat may account for the below average macroinvertebrate count, but it does not seem a conclusive enough reason. Further study is required to determine the source of this creek's poor quality.
Traver Creek begins in farmland and travels through increasingly urbanized areas before joining the Huron River. The rate of residential growth within its 7 square mile watershed has accelerated in the last decade. In addition, there are many dams along the length of Traver Creek affecting the environments of the watershed.
State of Our Environment
The overall physical condition of Traver Creek appears good, though unstable, because its banks are in need of repair. Upstream, Traver suffers from significant sedimentation problems, possibly caused by agricultural practices. Downstream, the substrate is better and the stream is shaded along much of its length, which adds considerably to the quality of the habitat for macroinvertebrates. Indeed, Traver has a greater diversity than many other creeks within the area, but that diversity is distributed in an unusual way. The greater numbers and variety would normally be expected downstream where habitat is better and the stream is larger, but instead it is the upstream portion that is more biologically diverse, and populations are smaller downstream in the more urbanized portion of the stream. The specific cause of the degradation has not yet been determined, but much more urban development is planned for the upper portions of Traver creekshed and the negative impacts of development will likely manifest upstream as well.