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Resurrecting the Dead River

Spring 2012

It was a recipe for disaster.

In May 2003, Marquette County, Michigan, situated in the famed Upper Peninsula (U.P.) region on the shores of Lake Superior, had experienced unseasonably warm spring temperatures that accelerated the thaw of the more than 200-inch snowpack received the previous winter. Then, beginning on May 11, the rains came. Precipitation fell steadily for the next two days before culminating in a drenching deluge on May 13. With the ground in the region still partially frozen, runoff was restricted from being absorbed by the surface soils. What began as a tiny trickle was, overnight, transformed into a tragic torrent.

In the Silver Lake Basin, just miles northwest of the city of Marquette, an earthen dam that served as a water storage unit of the Dead River began to weaken. The pressure of the rising lake level eventually breached the dam, creating a wall of water that rushed down the Dead River channel, destroying everything in its path.

"The force of the water obliterated the banks of the upper Dead River, blocked the mouth of its tributaries with sand and debris, and displaced thousands of trees," said Jessica Mistak, a fisheries biologist for the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR). "It was an amazing scene. The fisheries' resources and riverine habitat were completely destroyed."

Assessing the damage

The breached dam unleashed more than 9 billion gallons of water: flooding, damaging or destroying many homes, several roads and bridges, five downstream dams, two parks and three public access sites along a swollen stretch that extended down the river for 25 miles, all the way to the mouth at Lake Superior. Scouring the valley floor, the deluge destabilized the banks of the Dead River for more than four miles, where the main channel had become diverted to an entirely new course through freshly deposited sand.

The Michigan DNR estimated that approximately one million cubic yards of sediment and debris had been displaced by the event, depositing up to two yards of silt and muck across the expanse of the floodplain. Thousands of trees were also swept away.

"You also need to factor in the wildlife and the native plant species that once thrived along the banks of this river," Mistak says. "In order to get a full vision of what needed to be done, we studied several stable streams nearby. Stream restoration of this magnitude involves all aspects of the ecosystem and habitat, not just the soils and the fisheries."

After devastating 20 miles of river channel, the wall of water collided with an earthen dike at the Tourist Park impoundment near the city of Marquette, washing the majority of it away and engulfing the Presque Isle Power Plant located at the mouth of the river. From the air, the plume of silt-filled water and the remains of trees left in its wake formed a mud trail that was visible from the mouth of the river to Lake Superior, a distance of more than a mile.

Restoration and rebuilding

The Upper Peninsula Power Company (UPPC), owner of the Silver Lake Basin, chose to rebuild the failed dam — the last of five located closest to the power plant — using newer and more fail-safe methods. UPPC had worked with a local contractor, Associated Constructors, based in Marquette, Mich., for several years prior to this flooding, including construction of several dams and various river system projects within the Silver Lake Basin.

"The restoration phase has been ongoing since this unfortunate event occurred," says Jim O'Dovero, general manager of family-owned and operated Associated Constructors. "Because of the size and complexity of the project, several contractors were involved. Keep in mind that we're talking 20 miles of river system, including several different basins and tributaries, additional dams and damaged ecosystems. It has been a huge undertaking."

Associated Constructors was officially founded in 1981 by O'Dovero's father, Peter, who had been working in the construction industry since the late 1960s. The company offers a variety of specialized excavation and dirt work services, operates several rock quarries and also does site development in addition to completing many aspects of commercial and industrial projects. Associated Constructors has enjoyed steady growth over the years and currently has more than 80 employees.

The team of conservation and environmental officials selected to direct the recovery efforts agreed that the best way to restore the river was to set it back on its original course. But accomplishing this task would prove challenging because of the massive erosion that had occurred along the river banks.

DNR fisheries managers focused on using the principles of natural channel design as the blueprint to conduct the Dead River revitalization efforts. Among the priorities was building in-stream habitats where natural materials such as rock, brush and root wads were used to re-establish the riffles, pools and shelter that trout and aquatic insects need to flourish. Many of the habitat areas were constructed in advance, with the river being redirected to these newly built habitats later in the process. More than 91,000 cubic yards of material were moved in order to recreate a three-mile, 16,000-foot section of the original river channel, floodplain and wetlands.

"It was pretty amazing to walk through a constructed riffle or pool and imagine that, in just a few weeks, the waters of the Dead River would again be flowing where I was standing," Mistak says.

Another important component of a healthy Dead River was to re-establish floodplain and associated wetland areas beside the stream. A 100-foot buffer zone was created on both sides of the new channel and planted with native grasses, shrubs and trees to help filter sediment, provide shade for the river and eventually contribute to the stream habitat.

Currently, Associated Constructors is working to complete the final dredging and bank stabilization phase of the restoration, a 6,500-foot endeavor that culminates at the mouth of the Dead River where the stream — one of more than 300 — flows into the world's largest freshwater lake, Lake Superior.

"We're actually establishing a navigable river system," O'Dovero says. "It's basically a dredging project that involves building pools and riffles, with a mixture of deeper and shallower sections, along with bank stabilization. We used a Doosan DX300LC SLR (super long reach) for the excavation and pool-building component of the project because of its capabilities that allowed us to get more accomplished at each setup location."

O'Dovero explains that prep work for the dredging component of the job included the construction of 65 platforms at 100-foot intervals along the 6,500-foot route — necessary to position a secure working location for the excavator — in addition to a timber mat road used by trucks to haul the more than 30,000 cubic yards of excavated spoil away from the site. The prep work remains ongoing. The company recently added four new Doosan DX300LC crawler excavators to their equipment fleet that, according to O'Dovero, have been the perfect machines for the stream restoration activities.

"The DX300LC model we used reaches just over 57 feet," O'Dovero says. "The reach capability is a great benefit because it allows us to get more accomplished at each platform setting before having to move the excavator on to the next one."

O'Dovero — along with many others at Associated Constructors — has derived a great deal of personal gratification having played a major role in restoring the integrity of this designated trout stream after such a devastating event.

"It's one thing to build a dam or a dike," he says, "but quite another when you realize that we've been part of rebuilding a river channel, a floodplain — an entire ecosystem, for that matter. To think that we were involved with resurrecting the destroyed habitat of the Dead River, bringing it back to life, and knowing that this stream will again be teeming with trout, it's all pretty rewarding."