This project is located on the flint river within a USFWS priority watershed saginaw river

The University of Michigan - Flint received a $125,944 Cooperative Agreement grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the National Fish Habitat Partnership (CFDA 15.686) program. The grant funds will support near-term implementation monitoring and evaluation to ensure the successful removal of the Hamilton Dam on the Flint River in Michigan and the construction of six new riffles to improve fish passage and habitat connectivity. Key activities include:

• Collecting pre- and post-restoration data on fish populations, aquatic community health, and river substrate conditions to establish a baseline and evaluate project outcomes
• Tracking movements of tagged fish species like lake sturgeon, walleye, and smallmouth bass to assess effectiveness of the restored fish passage
• Quantifying changes in 25 miles of stream habitat that will be opened for fish spawning and migration

This project aims to address priorities outlined in Michigan's wildlife action plan and sturgeon rehabilitation strategy by improving aquatic connectivity and resiliency in the Flint River watershed, a high conservation priority area for lake sturgeon. The University of Michigan - Flint will collaborate with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on this effort.

The river is prioritized by USFWS for stocking of lake sturgeon stocking which is a culturally important species to the numerous federally listed tribes in michigan. Hamilton DAM the terminal DAM that has not allowed for any fish passage in the flint river flint MI is scheduled to be removed and six riffles will be constructed. This project is focused on doing the near term implementation monitoring to ensure structures were constructed according to approved designs and provide information to the michigan department of natural resources mdnr and the engineering firm so adjustments can be made as needed to ensure fish passage. The evaluation of fish passage pre and post DAM removal will inform the design of future in stream barrier removal project development. Mdnr has indicated that IT has been their experience on projects elsewhere in the state that modeling of riffle structures often underpredicts water velocities and the designed average channel cross sectional velocities at one riffle are higher than what they typically target for fish passage. Upstream fish passage criteria for the project were developed based on design targets for non jumping fish and using target species of lake sturgeon acipenser fulvescens and walleye sander vitreus. The mdnr indicates fisheries management of the flint river and its tributaries has been limited due to degraded water quality unstable flow and habitat loss. Our project focuses on ensuring that aquatic connectivity is complete through all riffles and resilience of the system is therefore improved. This addresses a need in the 2015 to 2025 michigan wildlife action plan by focusing on lake sturgeon with the flint considered a river of high conservation priority for the species. Michigans lake sturgeon rehabilitation plan prescribes the stocking of up to 2000 lake sturgeon in saginaw river tributaries one being the flint river for ten years with stocking started in 2018. Actions to address needs for the species that this project will address are evaluating feasibility of fish passage at key sites as well as threats to lake sturgeon recruitment.to establish a pre restoration baseline we have collected the following since 2019 above and below the DAM site and plan to also collect this data post restoration catch per unit effort of fish taxonomic and functional fish diversity contaminants in fish tissues river substrate and river water biotic integrity scores based on benthic macroinvertebrate evaluations maps of the morphology of the river bottom evaluation of river substrate composition including particle size distributions and determination of contaminants in the river substrate anthropogenic impacts gathered through history of toxic releases and spills water resource information such as dissolved oxygen PH conductivity and turbidity. Sediment flows and fish spawning in and out of riffles before during the time of DAM removal and after is also planned. The project will determine and ensure 25 miles of stream are opened for fish passage and fish spawning. Walleye white sucker catostomus commersonii smallmouth bass micropterus dolomieu and juvenile lake sturgeon will be collected and tagged with T bar tags with a subset tagged with acoustic and or PIT tags and then released. We will use the glatos system and PIT telemetry to track fine and large scale movements to determine fish passage. We will use EGG mats to evaluate reproduction pre and post restoration within riffles and outside of riffles downstream and upstream of the removed DAM site. The work will also quantify changes in the aquatic community and overall health of this site. More broadly this data will allow for evolution of best professional judgement for fisheries managers as to whether fish can readily be predicted to pass structures in this higher velocity range.