Alec Washabaugh helps carry the boat as Meaghan Kennedy directs traffic. Both are students at Pioneer High School. Next fall, Kennedy will be heading to Indiana University in Bloomington, where she’ll attend school on a crew scholarship. (Photos by the writer.)

From behind me comes the warning from one of the coxswains: “Heads up!” Coxswains steer the boats on the water – and on land as well, because lifting and turning the long craft requires coordination.

A peek over my shoulder confirms that the command is directed at me – I’m standing near the middle of an upside-down 8-person rowing shell held aloft by eight women. My noggin is safe for a few seconds as they pause. To clear the boat completely, I’d need to hustle a good 25 feet in one direction or the other. But that seems like an overly dramatic and panicky move. Surely that’s not what boathouse culture demands? Instead, I simply kneel. The boat makes its way over me and down to the dock.

The learning curve is steep. A few minutes later: “Heads up!” The scene repeats itself.

I confirm with Pioneer senior Meaghan Kennedy, who’s standing nearby, that yes, maybe I should find another vantage point. Kennedy is coxswain for the men’s varsity eight-man boat and one of the team’s captains, along with twins Zach and Mackenzie Miller. Kennedy is waiting to guide her own boat down to the dock.

Who Pays for This?

The Chronicle’s report of the March 24, 2010 meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Schools board of trustees includes details on this year’s proposed budget, which features a new “pay-to-play” program for athletics [emphasis added]:

[Superintendent Todd] Roberts emphasized that it was a goal for extracurricular activities not to prevent any student from participating. The cost to participate in high school sports would be $150 for the first sport, and $50 for every sport thereafter. In middle school, there would simply be one $50 athletic fee for any number of sports played over one year. Scholarships would be available, he said, for athletics, as well as to cover the musical instrument fees.

Up to now, the fee assessed by the district has been $35 to cover insurance for sports sanctioned by the Michigan High School Athletic Association. Rowing is not a sanctioned sport.

Coaches Griffith at Pioneer High School and Kraft at Huron High say the pay-to-play system will have an impact on their programs. Griffith told The Chronicle his rowers already pay $580 a year. For a fall and spring seasons rower, the proposed system would mean $200 more, pushing the total to $780. Griffith says that could give some of his 73 rowers this year pause. And if fewer students come out for the sport, that will nudge the cost higher still – the $580 cost is calculated by taking the budget set by the nonprofit Pioneer Rowing Club and dividing by the number of rowers.

Not a financial bailout. Huron High rowing coach Tom Kraft empties some water out of the launch from the previous day’s rain.

Kraft has similar concerns. The Huron Rowing Association is the nonprofit that oversees the capital investment and operations for the Huron High School team. Cost per rower per season is $275, which comes to$550 for a full year. Kraft notes that some scholarship money is available. One obligation that scholarships don’t cover, says Kraft, is the 400 points worth of fundraising effort each rower needs to contribute. There’s a point system for volunteering with various fundraisers – a deficit in points gets paid at a 1 point = 1 dollar conversion.

The school system supports the rowing program with funds for coaches and travel.

The rowers are not alone in already paying something to support their participation in athletics. All 38 varsity sports at each of the two high schools have associated booster clubs. The check that Pioneer golfers write to the booster club, for example, is $200. But in a phone interview, Liz Margolis, spokeswoman for Ann Arbor Public Schools, stressed that no student can be prevented from participating in a sport due to failure to pay a booster club fee. The same will be true of the pay-to-play system, Margolis said.

Out on the Water with Pioneer Crew: “A Fool Maid of Honor”

From the dock downstream, to the south, it’s about 500 meters to Argo Dam. Once the two racing shells – one 8-man and the other a 4-man – have made their way to the dam end of the pond, Coach Griffith checks in with them from our launch. Before we’d left shore he had searched the boat house for one of the bullhorns, but found only a megaphone – just a cone with no electronic amplification. He tests it out: “Is this at all a viable means of communication?” The indication from the rowers is, no, not really. But they make do.

Out on the water from foreground to background: Meaghan Kennedy, Zach Miller, Drew McMillan, Lucas Kennedy, Konstantinos Papefthymiou, Liad Lehavy, Nick Terrell.

Griffith starts them off with a two-pause drill. He wants them to interject “hiccup pauses” to make sure they get good “send” to the boat. The coxswains – Meaghan Kennedy for the 8-man and Zack Ackerman in the 4-man – are to call out the pauses to the crew.

We make our way back upstream well past the dock. Griffith admonishes the rowers, to “roll up together” better. We encounter some other rowing shells, and a kayaker who’s out on the pond that day, so Griffith hangs back with his motor launch. He doesn’t want to subject them to the wake from our boat.

We stop short of the US-23 bridge and turn around. The assigned drill – back up towards the dam – involves increasing the stroke rate every 20 strokes for 10 strokes at a time. This cadence is monitored by the coxswains, who are fed data from a rowing computer. The rowing computer works on the same principle as modern bicycling computers that count wheel rotations with a magnet.

Pioneer men’s team, foreground to background: Henry MacConnel, Josh LaHaye, David Chapman, Chris Darnton, Zack Ackerman (coxswain, hand only – look for the purple swatch at the edge of the frame).

In the racing shell, a magnet under the seat of the first rower – the stroke seat – tickles a sensor each time it slides past. The computer automatically calculates the stroke rate based on elapsed time.

Griffith has the boats practice their starts. “Sit ready! Attention! Row!” is the command sequence. He focuses his rowers on body angle – they’re laying back too far at the end of the stroke during the starts. With high stroke cadences, he tells them, they can cut off the lay back – there’s no need to go past vertical.

I switch out of Griffith’s boat and climb aboard a launch with women’s coach Suzanne Buzzell. “Buzz” did her collegiate rowing at Michigan State University. She’s putting an 8-woman boat through its paces. They’re working on building up to a stroke rate of 32 per minute. Buzz is focusing them on their “catches” – the part of the stroke when the oar blade first enters the water: “Keep the catches light! Let the blade fall right in! Effortless catches!”

Pioneer women’s team: Sarah Foster (coxswain), Hannah Graham, Annika Gage, Anna DeBoer, Claire Barrett, Rachel Bielajew, Ella Janowitz, Annie Oldani, Kendall Phillips.

And then, “Fool maid of honor!” Surely this was the distortion from the bullhorn? Or the way sound travels across the open water? [Unlike Griffith, Buzz had managed to snag an electronic bullhorn from the boat house.] A few more repetitions allow the actual words to settle acoustically in my ear: “Full blade of water.” Ah. That makes somewhat more sense.

At the end of the stroke, Buzz wants the blades coming out squared and clean: “Don’t throw up that water!” Although Buzz is focused on giving technical feedback, she explains to me that underlying the technical work is an aerobic- and stamina-building drill.

Well past the US-23 and railroad bridges not far from Barton Dam, we turn around. The kayaker, who’s been following at a distance, approaches and asks if he’s bugging us. No, he’s fine, says Buzz. She asks if he’s trying to race them. He confirms that he is. He’s fine just as long as he doesn’t run into them, Buzz advises.

The women in the boat want to hear from Buzz how they’re doing. Asks one, “Are my shoulders staying down?” Buzz’s frank assessment: “Yes – when I yell at you!” Another wants to know, “Is my handle height at the catch getting better?” Again, Buzz doesn’t tell give her the unconditional praise she’s probably hoping to hear: “When I yell at you – yes.”

Sarah Foster calls out the stroke count.

The practice for this boat wraps up with some start drills. The idea is to start with a five-stroke sequence with increasing power: half, half, three-quarter, full, full. That five-stroke sequence segues into 5 full strokes.

They’re trying to get the stroke rate up as high as possible. After several start drills, Buzz asks coxswain Sarah Foster for a report. They’ve been hitting between 31 and 32 strokes per minute with a high of 33.

Buzz tells them for the final drill she’d like to see a 36: “That’s doable,” she assures them. As they set off in search of a 36, Buzz exhorts them: “See how high you can get it. Have fun with this, ladies! Send it!”

The report back from Foster: 35 and a half. Asks Buzz, “Seriously?” Yep. Buzz tells them to stroke it into the dock. The 36 will apparently be left for another day.

But no.

Annika Gage, rowing in the second seat, wants to take another shot at 36. Buzz obliges, giving them 15 strokes after the initial five, to get to 36 strokes per minute. “Sit ready! Attention! Row!” And 20 strokes later Foster announces their victory for the afternoon: “36 and a half!”

Out on the Water with Huron Crew

It’s a week later now. Huron High coach Tom Kraft and I are waiting outside the boat house as assistants Ted Deakin, Jerry Hoffman and Mike Dove tell the team how practice will work that day. Kraft tells me that Dove should be credited with getting the Huron rowing program started. After helping with Pioneer for a few years, he’s now back at Huron.

Huron High rowers Peter Dolce (left)  and Matt Goolsby (right) before they were asked to “sit ready.”

The workout will be an experiment, says Kraft, combining the novice (first-year) rowers with varsity. Four novice rowers and four varsity rowers will sit in each boat. It’s a way for novice rowers to learn more quickly, Kraft says.

As we head out on the water, it’s windy – windy to the point that Kraft notes that the coxswains will need to be extra mindful, given the less experienced rowers in the boats. He also tells the oarsmen to be focused on the commands they hear from the coxswains: “If they ask you to row, you row, don’t make the coxies ask twice.”

After collecting the boats – three 8-man racing shells  and two coaches launches – near the dam end of Argo, the warm up starts heading north. They start with six people rowing, the other two just “setting” the boat – that is, balancing it. As they make their way up the pond, one of the three boats is clearly zipping along faster than the others. “Somehow that boat got loaded up with strong guys,” comments Kraft.

Kraft gives pointers: “Make sure it’s the outside hand doing the work!” “Get your hands out in front of your knees, sit up tall.”

After warming up, their first workout piece is seven minutes long with increasing stroke rates. In terms of stroke rate, here’s what it looks like:

1 minute  at 24 spm
2 minutes at 26 spm
3 minutes at 28 spm
1 minute  at 30 spm

-

Huron High School oar blade, just before the catch. In the center of the frame is Drew Baxter. Matt Schulte, sitting behind Baxter, is setting the boat during this warm-up phase.

With varsity-level rowers in every seat, Kraft said, they’d do 36-38 strokes per minute for an entire piece. For novices, 32 strokes might be all they could handle.

After the piece is done, Mike Dove gets them started on their second piece – it will be a five-stroke start.  “All boats sitting ready! Attention! Row!”

Kraft notes that for some of the rowers that is surely only their second-ever racing start. But then he observes, “They got through it. And nobody died!”

Regatta: Hebda Cup

Coming up on the schedule for the Huron and Pioneer rowing teams is the Hebda Cup in Wyandotte on April 24. There are around 20 races scheduled between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. that Saturday. The drive to Wyandotte, from Ann Arbor takes around an hour.

The question of whether to remove or repair the dam has been debated for more than three years, with several hearings and public meetings. Now, the issue could be decided within the next month or so. The city’s Environmental Commission is expected to vote on its own recommendation at its May 28 meeting, with Ann Arbor’s city council ultimately deciding the issue, perhaps as early as June.

Most of the 15 people who spoke during PAC’s public comment time on Tuesday were in support of keeping Argo Dam, and some of those supporters – but not all – were part of the city’s rowing community. Many teams use Argo Pond for training, and say it’s by far the best place to practice that sport locally. Because rowers have been vocal advocates for keeping the dam, there was sensitivity on the part of some speakers as well as during deliberations amongst commissioners not to portray the dam as a rowers-vs.-everyone-else issue.

Public Comment: Summary

John Satarino began the public comment portion of the meeting by stating that he assumed the dam would stay, but he wanted PAC to consider the impact that rowers have on the ability of passive users, such as hikers, cyclists and picnickers, to enjoy Argo Pond. The bullhorns used during training and the motors to power the coach’s boats cut down on the enjoyment of non-rowers. The amount of activity on Argo Pond is butting up against nature, he said, and he’s worried about water quality and park quality.

Cedric Richner spoke in support of removing the dam, reiterating many of the points he made in a recent letter to the editor in the Ann Arbor News. Maintenance of the dam is costly, he said, while removing it would bring in more revenues for the city’s canoe livery because it would be more attractive to canoeists and kayakers who would no longer have to portage around the dam. He noted that just down the road, the village of Dexter successfully removed the Mill Pond Dam, following nationwide trends.

Paul Cousins, one of the main advocates behind removing the Mill Pond Dam, is also chair of the Huron River Watershed Council, which has pushed for the Argo Dam removal. Removing the dam in Dexter has been good for the creek, he told PAC. Fish have moved upstream, kayakers are now shooting the rapids that have been formed, and an entire new park system is being created. Cousins urged the commission to “do the right thing” and remove the dam.

Laura Rubin, Huron River Watershed Council’s executive director, said that taking out the dam would significantly improve the river. The dam is failing, she said – a point she made in an op/ed piece published in the Ann Arbor News earlier this month. She said when talking about the dam, you need to include all its parts, and some of those parts – such as the toe drains – are in serious disrepair. The choice is taking out the dam or replacing a huge part of it.

Some people who spoke in support of keeping the dam accused the Huron River Watershed Council of misrepresenting the condition of the dam. Mark Breeding, who described himself as a tree hugger, said the nonprofit’s rhetoric had become hysterical. Michele Macke took issue with the argument that removing the dam would restore the river to its natural state. That’s not possible, she said, since there are dams on either side of that stretch of river – at Barton and Geddes. ”I teach logic in high school. This is not a logical argument.”

Sarah Rampton, who brought to the podium some schematic maps of the dam, said she’d talked to Joe O’Neal, who designed the dam when it was rebuilt in the 1970s. Though the toe drains are failing, she said, there are ways to address that in the short-term that can be done cheaply and quickly. That will buy some time to come up with other alternatives.

Lisa Psarouthakis said that other parks have maintenance like cutting the grass or painting lines on the baseball field. Argo Pond is a rowers’ field, she said. It needs maintenance, just like other fields. The toe drains and embankment need to be fixed, but the city shouldn’t flush a jewel like Argo Pond downstream.

Mike Anthony, an engineer with the University of Michigan and member of the National Electric Code committee, urged PAC to explore the availability of homeland security funds for hydropower, as part of a countywide power security program. He said the issue of emergency regional power security should be part of the discussion about Argo Dam.

Rich Griffith, head coach of the Ann Arbor Pioneer crew team, said he’d already spoken at other meetings about the reasons to keep Argo Dam. Instead, this time he wanted to talk about some of the accomplishments of the rowing teams. Among them, last weekend the women’s varsity eight team and the men’s varsity four team won state championships against 19 other schools. He said the rowers have been quietly making Ann Arbor proud, and are a hidden gem.

Griffith concluded by saying, ”I am on the Argo impoundment nearly every day for half the year. It is my office. It is where I earn my living … I have tremendous respect for it. I know its birds, its fish, its critters. I can tell you where the swans nest, where the herons perch, where the vegetation and stumps lurk, and where the fish like to jump. It is not dying, or in need of rescue. It simply is what it is, a fine and beautiful impoundment, enjoyed and respected by man and nature alike.”

PAC Deliberations

Linda Berauer, PAC’s chair, said this was the single most difficult decision she’s faced on the more than five years that she’s served on the commission. She noted that they’d done a lot of homework on the issue, citing a recent joint public hearing with the city’s Environmental Commission as well as a PAC working session devoted to the topic. [More information about the multi-year process of evaluating Argo, including the final report of the Huron River Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP), is on the city's State of Our Environment website.]

Several commissioners had questions for staff, which were fielded primarily by Matt Naud, the city’s environmental coordinator.

Sam Offen followed up on Mike Anthony’s remarks made during the public comment session. Offen wanted Naud to comment on the homeland security issues raised by Anthony, and whether funding would be available to provide hydroelectric power from the dam. Naud said the National Electric Code is being modified to require that municipalities be able to run on backup power for 72 hours. He said Consumers Energy estimated that hydropower from Argo could generate about $100,000 in revenues per year, but at that rate it would take 40 years to recoup the cost of building a power-generator on Argo. Naud said he wouldn’t recommend keeping Argo Dam simply because of hydropower, but that if they voted to keep the dam, they could explore the use of hyrdopower.

Berauer said she was interested in comments by the speaker (Rampton) who suggested they could buy time by making some cheap, quick repairs. That was appealing because it would allow them time to gather more information and data, Berauer said. But was the suggestion of closing the millrace practical, she asked, and what would that do to canoe portage? The short answer: It’s doable, but costly, and would require extending the portage about five times its current length.

Commissioner Gwen Nystuen asked for clarification about what would happen if the toe drains aren’t repaired. Naud said the 60 drains are a way for water to get out of the embankment. When they get clogged, the embankment could get saturated, creating erodible surfaces. It becomes a hazard when that eventually causes the dam to erode, too.

Berauer said she’d received an email from someone claiming that Argo Dam mitigated flooding, and she didn’t believe that was the case. Naud confirmed that it was not – the dams aren’t for flood control.

Commissioner John Lawter asked what would happen to the Argo canoe livery if the dam was removed. Cheryl Saam, supervisor for the liveries, said they’d consider putting a livery just below Barton Dam, and because the river stretch would be longer with some rapids, they’d anticipate an increase in use and revenues.

Following questions for the staff, the commission considered two resolutions:

1. a resolution put forward by David Barrett and Gwen Nystuen, which resolved to accept the proposals in the Huron River Impoundment Management Plan report and “accept the course of action for Argo dam that retains Argo Dam and Argo Pond with the repair of the toe drains in the embankment below the dam with BMP flow controls, and appropriate design of the water supply to the headrace, and plan to create a water bypass or suitable portage for canoes and kayaks.”
2. a resolution by Brigit Macomber and Scott Rosencrans, which “concurs with the findings of the HRIMP report in every other respect” but which, noting that the report did not make a specific recommendation regarding the dam, called for its removal.

Barrett said Argo Dam is not failing – the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) wants the city to repair the toe drains. The environmental case for removal of the dam was not commensurate with the cost, he said. And he noted that just because one constituency (the rowing community) had been quite vocal, that doesn’t mean they’re the only group that benefits from Argo Pond. There’s a larger group that supports the current environment of the pond, too, he said.

Nystuen said they keep getting new information and additional questions that need to be answered, including some related to the impact of sedimentation, vegetation and fisheries. Removing the dam would be costly, she added, at a time when the budget is tight.

Lawter said he knows that people complain about the rowers, but he finds that kind of activity on the pond energizing. How many cities can claim to have something like that so close to their downtown?

Commissioner Julie Grand said she struggled with this issue, but ultimately came down on the side of keeping the dam in place.

The resolution drafted by Macomber and Rosencrans stated that removal of the dam would improve the natural habitat and overall ecology of that stretch of Huron River. It also stated that before the dam could be removed, alternatives for the rowing community would need to be found.

Macomber agreed that it was a difficult decision. She said she’s a daily or weekly visitor to Argo, where she walks, bikes and kayaks. It’s a beautiful area, but a natural river would be equally beautiful. Another factor is the issue of creating a safe passage across the railroad tracks at the north end of Bandemer Park. Right now, an option that’s too expensive to pursue is to build an underground passage. But if the dam is removed, the water level would drop so that a boardwalk could be built under the train tressel, similar to one at Barton Dam  – and it would be significantly less expensive to build.

Commissioner Tim Berla began his comments by saying he hoped everyone could remember that they all cared about the Huron River, no matter which side they were on in this debate. The people who want to keep the dam are not anti-environmental, just as the people who want to remove the dam aren’t anti-rowing. Well, he conceded, maybe some of them are – but not all. He said if rowing weren’t involved, it would be an easy decision for him – take the dam out. He cited three issues: recreation, environment and money. For recreation, it was better to leave the dam in because of the rowers. However, it would be better for the environment if the dam were removed. That left the financial issue – and it would be more expensive over the next 20 years to leave the dam in than to remove it now.

Berauer said she was very attached to Argo Pond, and that this had been a difficult decision. After one of the meetings on this issue, she’d driven out to Dexter to see how the area looked after the Mill Pond Dam had been removed. She expected to see “dreadful mudflats,” she said, but the area was beautiful. She said it’s important to recognize that they support the rowing community, but that she’d been convinced there were other options for them. She thought the idea of having whitewater in town was cool, and that they’d heard from staff that canoeing would be enhanced by the dam’s removal. Overall, recreational activities with or without the dam would be roughly equivalent.

Offen said he’d be comfortable with either decision, and that he was disappointed with the HRIMP committee because they didn’t make a recommendation about Argo Dam. He thought that after studying the issue for two years, they should have come to a definite conclusion. He said he wasn’t convinced that taking the dam out would make much of a difference, so he planned to vote for the option that would do the least harm, which meant leaving things as is. Another factor: they were coming at it from the perspective of parks and recreation, which tipped the balance toward keeping the dam.

As commissioners stated their positions, it became clear that the resolution to keep the dam had enough votes to pass. There was some discussion about whether to postpone the vote for two weeks, giving PAC members time to craft a document incorporating elements from both resolutions. They could then vote during the June 2 meeting of PAC’s land acquisition committee, which is a group consisting of all members of the commission. Christopher Taylor, who’s one of city council’s ex-officio representatives to PAC, pointed out that all voting members were at the current meeting, which might not be the case in two weeks and which could therefore affect the outcome of the vote.

As the meeting approached the three-hour mark, Grand – saying that her husband was out of town and she needed to get home to her kids – made a motion to vote on the “dam-in” resolution [.pdf draft resolution adopted by PAC]. Macomber offered an amendment extracted from the dam-out resolution [.pdf draft resolution recommending dam removal]. The amendment, which was unanimously approved, states:

Whereas, Argo Pond is difficult for non-rowers to use when the rowing crews are practicing or racing due to marine right of way rules given the rowers the right of way through the majority of the non weed invested waters on the pond, and

Whereas the rowing clubs have multiple boats that require megaphone use for coaching, the sound of which carries across the Pond and into surrounding neighborhoods, and

Whereas the rowing clubs use gasoline motored launches to coach crew boats which are known to regularly violate the “no wake” impoundment rule,

Resolved that the Park Advisory Commission recommends that as long as there are rowing clubs using impoundments within the city’s purview for their activities that the new River Stewardship Committee, as proposed in the HRIMP recommendations, formulate an appropriate fee structure, shared use plan and schedule, and set a deadline for all megaphone use to be phased out. Such a body should also work to formulate a coaching strategy that will not entail violations of the “no wake” impoundment rule.

The amended resolution was then passed on a 5-4 roll call vote. Voting in favor: Barrett, Grand, Lawter, Offen and Nystuen. Voting against: Berauer, Berla, Macomber and Rosencrans.

Berauer, Macomber and Rosencrans plan to draft a “minority opinion” to submit to council, outlining their rationale for wanting to remove the dam.

Matt Naud, environmental coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor, gives the universal gestural sign for Whoah-there-fella, as Steven Yaffee of the UM School of Natural Resources & Environment looks on.

At the first of three public meetings on the future of the Huron River held Wednesday evening at Forsythe Middle School, the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP) committee’s vision for the Huron River’s future was presented. It reads in part: “The river and its publicly-owned shoreline and riparian areas create a blue and green corridor across the city that contains restored natural areas and adequate, well-sited public trails and access.”

It was that sentence that prompted the first whispered interactions between The Chronicle and other folks at our table: What, exactly, does “riparian” mean? Russ Miller, a rower who’s now hooked on the sport after taking it up only a couple of years ago, had a notion that it had to do with the place where the water meets the shore, but it was his PALM handheld computing device that provided a definitive answer: interface area between land and a stream.

The Forsythe meeting itself could fairly be described as an interface between two groups as different as land and water: people keen to see Argo Dam preserved, and those who wouldn’t mind seeing it disappear.

Why Are We Talking about Argo Dam Now?

Based on the public participation at Wednesday’s meeting, many people on both sides of the Argo Dam question perceive the idea of dam removal to have developed as an isolated question about that dam. But Steven Yaffee of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources & Environment introduced the informational part of the presentation to around 150 people by giving some background on HRIMP in the general context of planning for the length of the Huron River. In March 2006, it was the Ann Arbor environmental commission that created the HRIMP committee and charged them with developing a Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan. [A list of committee members is included in the primer for planning along the Huron, which is a PDF file with native digital text (i.e., not scanned).]

Rowers from Pioneer High School.

HRIMP’s current timeline for work after the last of the public meetings is to spend February hammering out a draft plan, in March present the draft plan to the city’s park advisory commission and environmental commission with public hearings at both bodies, and finally sometime in April recommend a plan to city council, again with a public hearing. April won’t be the first time some of the councilmembers will be seeing the material: Stephen Rapundalo and Margie Teall attended Wednesday’s meeting.

The remaining public meetings before the committee works on the draft will be held Jan. 31 (9 a.m. – noon); and Feb. 5 (7-10 p.m.) at Forsythe Middle School, 1655 Newport Road [check dates]

So where did the impetus to form a committee and develop a river plan come from? Yaffee pointed out that the Huron River is the most prominent natural feature in the city of Ann Arbor, and the city owns most of the shoreline, yet there is no plan for its management. Further, there is no budget for its management. The current initiative is partly a response to this gap.

It’s also the condition of the river itself and the four ponds formed by the four dams (Barton, Superior, Argo, Geddes) that has started to force the question of river management. The city of Ann Arbor’s environmental coordinator, Matt Naud, presented the challenges now faced by the city. The build-up of sediment over decades behind the dams and the interference of aquatic vegetation with uses like canoeing and rowing means that investment needs to be made in dredging and vegetation harvesting, if those uses are to continue.

Laura Rubin of the Huron River Watershed Council talks with Jonathon Lutz of Huron River Paddlers.

Further, Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality set a deadline for Dec. 31, 2008 for the city of Ann Arbor to address maintenance issues with the toe drains under the earthen berm that extends along the mill race on the east side of Argo Dam. With that deadline passed, DEQ has given the city an extension until June 2009 to present a plan for the toe drains. If the plan is to remove Argo Dam, then the toe drain maintenance issue could become moot.

Three Scenarios for Argo Dam

There were three different scenarios presented for the future of Argo Dam: (i) preservation of the dam as it is, (ii) complete removal of the dam, and (iii) partial removal of the dam with construction of whitewater drops.

It’s only under the scenario of complete dam removal that the issue of aquatic vegetation management disappears – but that’s only for Argo Dam. The issue of management of the vegetation in Barton Pond would become even more crucial in that scenario, because Barton is envisioned as one of the alternative venues for rowers.

Steven Yaffee, of UM's School of Natural Resources & Environment, listed out people's concerns as they voiced them.

Why isn’t the removal of Barton Dam being contemplated? One reason is that Barton Pond is the source of 80% of the drinking water for the city of Ann Arbor, and another is that the hydro-power generated at Barton Dam generates a small profit. Superior Dam is the other dam currently generating hydro-power. According to Naud, it pays for itself with the power it produces. One alternative not included among the three scenarios presented is to restore hydroelectric generation to Argo Dam. The 2008 hydroelectric feasability study suggests something like a 44-year payback on the required investment.

The removal of Geddes Dam, the other purely recreational dam (i.e., non-hydroelectric generating dam) besides Argo, was also not presented as an alternative. As a part of his presentation, Naud described how Geddes Dam had failed during the flood of 1968, and when it was rebuilt in 1974, it was guided by the vision of Guy Larcom (the former city administrator for whom the city hall building is named) for the recreational facility that is now Gallup Park. But hydroelectric capacity was not included in the rebuilding plans.

Breakout Session: Complete Removal of Argo Dam

The status of Geddes Dam arose in one of the break-out sessions that followed the large-group presentation and the answering of clarificational questions. One participant said that when he reflected on the reasons given for the removal of Argo Dam, those same reasons were arguments for removal of Geddes Dam.

The question this rower had for proponents of dam removal: "Why is it so important to remove the dam?"

The breakout sessions were based on the different scenarios for Argo Dam. And the comment about Geddes Dam came in Room 310, where the topic was complete dam removal at Argo.

Yaffee was acting as the facilitator in the room, along with Laura Rubin of the Huron River Watershed Council. The room was filled mostly with folks from the rowing community but included hikers and fishermen, too.

The dialogue threatened to bog down in the discussion of dollars: What alternative is the cheapest? In his presentation to the large group, Naud had attached some dollar amounts to various parts of different scenarios – which seemed intended to illustrate the point that under any plan moving forward, large amounts of money would need to be invested. Those amounts, however, led to the marshalling of arguments for and against scenarios based on cost. After much back-and-forth on that question, one person in Room 310 offered: “We don’t know anything – we should take the numbers out of it.” But that met with the response from another person: “We’re here to talk about numbers!”

People did manage to steer clear of the numbers hazard enough of the time that the non-financial aspects of the issue rose to the surface. Rowers were keen to make the case that Argo Pond was not just great for rowing, it was really the only place for that activity. When a Bird Hills hiker asked the rowers: “When will it get to a point when you’re not blasting people with megaphones?” the response from one young rower was to emphasize that while there were lots of places to enjoy walking, there was only one place to row. The implied message: Find someplace else to walk, if you don’t like the noise.

Talking to University of Michigan rowing coach Gregg Hartsuff after the breakout session, he told The Chronicle that the megaphone noise comes from the motorized launches that accompany a rowing boat during a training session. Coaches convey instructions to their team during pracice with the megaphones. Wireless technology that would allow a rowing coach to speak into a microphone that would send a signal to speakers built into the bottom of the boat costs around $1,000 per boat, Hartsuff said. Asked if the yelling into the microphone itself could still pose a noise problem, Hartsuff said that he didn’t generally yell at his team – because his goal was to get his guys to relax and that yelling had the potential to cause them to tense up in a way that undermined smooth stroking.

Room 310 breakout session.

Interesting fact from the coach: UM rowers pay $2,300 a year in order to participate in the sport.

It’s not just the UM boats that would need to be outfitted with speaker technology in order to eliminate megaphone noise. Some 540-570 rowers use Argo pond on a regular basis. And it’s not just high school and collegiate rowers. Marcia Leonard, who had sat at The Chronicle’s table and rows with the Ann Arbor Rowing Club, doesn’t fit either category. That statistic about the number of rowers was one source of friction, because canoe usage was measured in terms of paddling trips (50,000 a year) whereas rowing usage was reported by the number of participants.

Anglers were also represented in the room in the form of Paul Christensen, president of the Huron River Fly Fishing Club. He said that removing Argo Dam would give fly fishermen an extra mile or so of wade-able water.

Some of the discussion focused on the question of whether trout could be introduced into the Huron, and if they could, whether they counted as “natural.” Also a part of the discussion of what counts as “natural” was the river itself. Rubin reduced the issue to what a river’s natural function is: to transport water and sediment. A dam stops water and sediment, Rubin said, and therefore interferes with a river’s natural function.

Russ Miller clarifies for The Chronicle what "riparian" means.