The City and GRWW are currently seeking permits to construct the Lower Reach Project from just upstream of Bridge Street to Fulton Street. The Sixth Street Dam will not be affected or removed as part of this project. The Lower Reach projects seeks to remove four low-head dams to: 

• Reduce public safety hazards generated by low-head dams
• Create diverse habitats including riffles, runs, waves, and pools to restore aquatic riverine habitat, and improve fish passage
• Recapture the sight, sound, and spirit of the historic and iconic rapids, for which the City is named
• Enhance distinctive recreational opportunities such as wading, angling, and whitewater paddling sports, that are safe, interesting, and substantial enough to engage residents, attract tourists and serve as a catalyst for local, regional, and equitable economic development opportunities

Permit applications for construction to begin in the Summer of 2025 were submitted to the required state and federal agencies in May of 2024. Per State of MI permit requirements, the project was placed on public notice from July 17, 2024 until August 6, 2024. A virtual Public Hearing was held on Monday August 5, 2024 and comments were accepted until August 15, 2024.
The Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy issued a draft permit for the project on December 20, 2024.

The City of Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Whitewater are currently working on the final review and approval of an Watershed Project Plan-Environmental Assessment (WPP-EA) document with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) needed to finalize a Watershed Project Plan and release additional federal habitat restoration funds. The review and approval of the WPP-EA is the final regulatory approval needed for construction to begin.

All of the documents that have been submitted to EGLE are publicly available at: 

https://miwaters.deq.state.mi.us/nsite/site/4302258526780694889/documents

While enhancing whitewater recreation was an early goal of the project, the project proponents have always embraced the opportunities and desires from others to improve natural river function, enhance fish passage, improve public safety, create and enhance aquatic habitat and flow diversity.

The design once included as many as 12 whitewater recreation features on both sides of the river. The previous permit application had four whitewater recreation features. After objections from state and federal permitting agencies, that application was withdrawn in March of 2023.

Since that time our project team has coordinated closely with state and federal agencies to develop a framework that guided the project design and development process for this new project. Designs for the lower reach were refined during an iterative process with MDNR Fisheries Division staff to achieve the MDNR’s hydraulic targets for fish passage to the greatest extent possible and with EGLE staff to ensure compliance with state and federal laws.

The goals of the project design framework were to:
 Remove the low-head dams and the associated public safety hazards
 Achieve fish passage and aquatic habitat enhancement targets
 Diversify recreational opportunities
 Develop as aesthetically and functionally natural stream design as possible
 Include safe river access
 Protect critical infrastructure
 Restore rapids
 Avoid and minimize bed instability and public safety concerns associated with increases in flow velocities and scour potential

The project seeks to improve fishing opportunities throughout the reach by enhancing the current channel and replacing the uniform velocities and depths created by the low-head dams with diverse rocks, boulders, and grading. The angler will be able to experience and explore a mosaic of complex and diverse habitat types. The diversity in depths and velocities will more closely resemble a natural river and the fish will have access to a wide range of habitat types throughout the Lower Reach which are not currently available. This will provide anglers with an opportunity to take advantage of a larger area that possess more-diverse conditions and target fish in the pools, runs, glides, and riffles created by the Project.

Fish passage has also been a primary design goal of the project. The project underwent an extensive iterative design process to improve fish passage within the Lower Reach. The City and GRWW has worked closely with MDNR Fisheries Division to alter the design to enhance fish passage along the channel margins, provide bulk passage for migrating fish, and reduce flow velocities, when compared to the existing conditions, as much as possible. During this iterative process, many design changes were made that included the removal of previously proposed recreational wave features, more gradual grading of riffle slopes to provide better fish passage hydraulics and mussel habitat areas, and incorporating over 125 scattered habitat boulders. To inform the design and to maximize fish movement and passage throughout the reach, a sophisticated 2-D hydraulic model was developed to analyze water velocities, depths, and fish swim paths. 

Because of the complexity of a construction project of this magnitude, there will be short term impacts to fishing during the construction. These temporary impacts are not anticipated to have lasting negative consequences to the existing fish populations.

The design of the project will have an overall positive impact on available mussel habitat areas. The project is anticipated to have a positive impact on mussel species and mussel habitat, meaning that more mussels could eventually occupy this reach of the river someday. Impacts to mussels from both a design perspective and construction impact perspective have been thoroughly evaluated and reduced to the greatest extent possible. 

• Construction of the project will result in some direct impact to mussels and has been reduced to the greatest extent possible.

• A substantial mussel relocation effort occurred in the summer of 2024. A project area of 45,000 square meters, roughly the size of eight football fields, was searched and 9,040 mussels were relocated to other suitable habitat areas in the Grand River. This includes 6,933 common mussel species, 2,069 state listed species, and 38 federally endangered species. 

It is not feasible to remove every single mussel within the project area due to high velocities and dangerous hydraulics created by the existing dams. Therefore, a mussel mitigation fund will be established to mitigate the loss of state and federally listed species. The purpose of the fund will be to support monitoring and conservation measures that significantly benefit state and federally listed mussels species after completion of the Lower Reach Project.

A cultural resources survey was conducted within the project area to evaluate potential impacts to cultural and historic resources. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is anticipated to award funding to this project under Public Law 83-566 regulations, which requires the development and approval of a Watershed Protection Plan-Environmental Assessment (Plan-EA) to identify and address potential environmental impacts resulting from the proposed Project in accordance with environmental law. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 requires Federal agencies to consider the environmental consequences of their proposed actions before a decision is made. A Plan-EA has been prepared to comply with the requirements of NEPA and the National Watershed Program Manual. The Plan-EA presents the proposed Project and associated alternatives, and discusses potential environmental impacts that may result from the implementation of the proposed Project. The NRCS will then issue a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) or request additional information as necessary to approve the Proposed Action. 

Since federal money through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is anticipated to fund a portion of this project, the project is deemed a federal undertaking and is therefore also subject to the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 as amended. As part of the Section 106 process, the City and GRWW have been in consultation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other agency partners to evaluate potential impacts to archaeological, historic, and architectural resources. NRCS provided an initial request for Section 106 consultation to the MI State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in 2018. 

In March of 2021 it was determined that the four low-head dams were eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Because the project requires removal of all four low-head dams, the project does not allow for avoidance or minimization of adverse impacts to these structures and the impacts to the dams must be mitigated. 

NRCS, The City of Grand Rapids, and GRWW worked together to develop an appropriate mitigation plan to document the historic role of these structures in the city’s history. The proposed mitigation measures were presented during a NRCS Public Comment period in November of 2021 and a Memorandum of Agreement between the City, GVMC, GRWW, NRCS, and MI-SHPO, is currently being reviewed by the agencies as a formal mechanism to ensure that the mitigation measures are followed during construction of the project and removal of the low-head dams.