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Making the rapids grand again · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:10
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:12
  Jeff Cranson: This week I wanted to talk about the project to restore the rapids in the Grand River in Grand Rapids.
• 0:22
  Jeff Cranson: Rivers are a source of transportation and mobility, have been for hundreds of years.
• 0:28
  Jeff Cranson: And this project will make the section in Grand Rapids that's been very difficult to navigate much easier by taking out some dams, uh installing boulders, and trying to return the river to its natural state, and the very reason that Grand Rapids has the name that it has in the first place.
• 0:47
  Jeff Cranson: These projects have been done other places in the country and they've had tremendous benefits both for recreation and environmental, uh helping with wildlife and with economic development, including Traverse City.
• 0:59
  Jeff Cranson: So Matt Chapman, who is the executive director of Grand Rapids Whitewater, spoke first, talked very broadly about the project over the years, how it first came into conception, and then all of the work that went back and forth over nearly 20 years to get it to where it is now.
• 1:17
  Jeff Cranson: He had a lot of interesting things to say about the 18-foot drop that occurs basically from about a mile north of Grand Rapids into downtown.
• 1:26
  Jeff Cranson: So you can think about the river falling that much and what kind of pace that creates for the river flow.
• 1:32
  Jeff Cranson: He also talks about why the rapids were removed in the first place and how they benefited the logging industry and you know how flood control was part of that and sanitation was a factor and construction fill and other things.
• 1:47
  Jeff Cranson: And then later I spoke with Rosalynn Bliss, who was the mayor of Grand Rapids from 2016 until 2025, and she had a lot of interesting things to say about what it was like kind of shepherding the project at that time, dealing with the state and federal agencies, being an advocate, and understanding sometimes you've got to forego the perfect for the good.
• 2:15
  Jeff Cranson: She was a great advocate for the project, and she's very pleased with where it is.
• 2:19
  Jeff Cranson: So I hope you enjoy both conversations.
• 2:22
  Jeff Cranson: So Matt Chapman is again executive director of Grand Rapids Whitewater, first time appearance on the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 2:31
  Jeff Cranson: Matt, thank you.
• 2:33
  Jeff Cranson: I really appreciate you taking time to do this.
• 2:35
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, thanks, Jeff.
• 2:36
  Matt Chapman: Thanks for having me.
• 2:36
  Matt Chapman: Looking forward to it.
• 2:38
  Jeff Cranson: So let's uh let's first talk about I want to get into the background, and there's uh plenty to cover there, and you know, nearly 20 years of conceptual work and then real work.
• 2:49
  Jeff Cranson: But um let's start with just telling people where the project stands right now.
• 2:55
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, so after uh, as you mentioned, after 18 years, uh almost 20 years, we are finally under construction of the what we refer to as the Lower Reach Project.
• 3:04
  Matt Chapman: So uh Grand Rapids Whitewater and the city and other partners have been um imagining uh revitalizing the river and restoring rapids from roughly a two-mile stretch out of the downtown area from Ann Street kind of as our northern boundary down to Fulton Street as a southern boundary.
• 3:20
  Matt Chapman: Um in 2017, we kind of split that off into two separate projects.
• 3:25
  Matt Chapman: Uh the more we learned about the river, uh the complexities of invasive sea lamprey and the fact that the Sixth Street Dam acts as a uh lamprey barrier, um, we kind of decided to focus first on this lower reach section.
• 3:37
  Matt Chapman: So roughly Bridge Street down to Fulton Street, where there's four of the uh total of five low head dams in the Grand River.
• 3:43
  Matt Chapman: So uh July 1, construction crews rolled out into the river and started working on removing the first dam and uh constructing a pretty large coffer dam, essentially isolating half the flow of the river.
• 3:54
  Matt Chapman: And they're really working hard all summer long.
• 3:57
  Matt Chapman: Um, by the end of this summer, we should have two of the four dams removed.
• 4:01
  Matt Chapman: Um, and we've restored a lot of uh kind of boulder rapids or uh boulder rapid habitat uh in the area from Pearl Street down to uh Fulton Street Bridge.
• 4:11
  Matt Chapman: So uh for the first time in over a hundred years, you can actually hear rapids roaring in downtown Grand Rapids again, which is a really exciting thing to see and hear.
• 4:19
  Jeff Cranson: So I was out there with you last week and we got a very good view from the Blue Bridge.
• 4:24
  Jeff Cranson: Um, talk about what people would see right now if they cross one of those pedestrian bridges in downtown Grand Rapids and look out over the river.
• 4:34
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, so in that lower reach, again, you can uh you know, we've actually completed that work from uh Parole Street down to Fulton Street.
• 4:40
  Matt Chapman: So we've got some really large boulders that are out there, and you're starting to see uh much more diversity in terms of the flow patterns that the water takes.
• 4:48
  Matt Chapman: So previously, much of the downtown river section was kind of these three or four pools of just kind of really still water.
• 4:55
  Matt Chapman: Um you didn't really see a whole lot of white water.
• 4:57
  Matt Chapman: You saw some kind of fast-moving currents here and there, but very uh very consistent.
• 5:01
  Matt Chapman: So that's all different now.
• 5:03
  Matt Chapman: Uh we've got some big boulders out there uh between uh Pearl Street Bridge and the Blue Bridge, and then uh a really nice kind of boulder drop structure below the blue bridge down to Fulton Street with some more boulders.
• 5:14
  Matt Chapman: Um but the really exciting thing is if you're out uh kind of up around the Gillette Bridge area or in front of Ah-Nab-Awen Park, um actually seeing construction equipment driving in the riverbed, or on the riverbed, I should say.
• 5:26
  Matt Chapman: Um we're talking, you know, significant uh size off-road dump trucks and very large excavators that are actually out building and doing the construction, uh, removing uh concrete, chipping out some of the old dams and hauling that off site, um, and then bringing in these you know giant kind of four to six foot boulders made of um you know natural granite and limestone, and they're uh driving into the riverbed and excavating some of the riverbed and placing this equipment.
• 5:52
  Matt Chapman: So it's really cool to see, uh especially with art prize going on right now.
• 5:55
  Matt Chapman: There's a lot of people downtown on the bridges, and a lot of people are just uh really surprised that uh we're able to drive right out into the river to do this type of work.
• 6:03
  Matt Chapman: So it's fun to see, and it's fun to see the excitement that people have after uh so many years of waiting for this data to happen.
• 6:10
  Jeff Cranson: So that's definitely what's what struck me.
• 6:12
  Jeff Cranson: I did not expect to see that that giant excavator, a kind of a backhoe with dozer tracks basically uh running along the bed of the river.
• 6:21
  Jeff Cranson: And I was even more surprised when you told me they didn't have to do much to make that possible.
• 6:26
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, we were uh really surprised too.
• 6:28
  Matt Chapman: So obviously we we've gone through a very rigorous design and engineering phase, and um some of the plans kind of called for you know constructing a stone causeway in the river so that there's a very flat surface.
• 6:39
  Matt Chapman: Uh so obviously safety is the number one priority here, right, with uh equipment like this in the river.
• 6:44
  Matt Chapman: Um but largely as they were out there kind of driving around, um, the river bottom was pretty flat.
• 6:49
  Matt Chapman: I mean, of course, there's uh changes in depth, you know, around some of the bridge piers and things like that.
• 6:54
  Matt Chapman: But uh they've been able to, within kind of our construction footprint areas, drive around with their uh with relative ease.
• 7:00
  Matt Chapman: And then uh in a few places they did bring in some additional material to kind of fill some holes and things like that.
• 7:05
  Matt Chapman: But uh it's great that they were able to get out there and do that work and um you know make it a little easier than maybe uh what we had initially thought.
• 7:13
  Jeff Cranson: So it's easy to look back on our you know, ancestors and people, industrialists 150 years ago, who were thinking uh about economic development and what could make you know uh Grand Rapids a better place to work and live.
• 7:30
  Jeff Cranson: And obviously the river had a lot to do with uh the furniture industry, uh, especially the at that time residential furniture industry growing up in Grand Rapids because of lumber that was harvested to the north and floated down the river.
• 7:46
  Jeff Cranson: So nobody was really thinking about the environmental impacts.
• 7:49
  Jeff Cranson: And you know, it's easy to second guess them and think, how could you have not known that like turning your back to the river or not even turning your back to the river, but using it for industrial uses or even as a dumping ground for sewage probably wasn't the best long-term idea.
• 8:04
  Jeff Cranson: Um, so in your studies of this, and you probably know as much about it as anybody in town, um, how did you come to reconcile that and talk about it in a way that doesn't sound like you're being too self-righteous about you know what your ancestors did?
• 8:19
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, I think it was a lot, a lot of it was just kind of that historical research, really trying to understand, you know, what exactly what we've done to the river.
• 8:27
  Matt Chapman: And I think a lot of times, uh, you know, anytime there's a big project or something changes, you know, there there's generally, I think, just a sense of hesitation of, well, why are we doing that?
• 8:36
  Matt Chapman: It's been that way for a hundred years, there's no reason to change it.
• 8:39
  Matt Chapman: Um, but when you really dig into some of the history and you really see that, you know, this section of river and this two miles, um, there's really nothing natural about it.
• 8:50
  Matt Chapman: I mean, there's no connection uh to a natural floodplain.
• 8:53
  Matt Chapman: So I grew up on a river and you know, I knew that every spring the field uh behind my house would flood, and that's because that's what rivers do, right?
• 9:01
  Matt Chapman: They swell over their banks and they kind of go out in the natural floodplain, and that's great for those, you know, uh a lot of times farmlands or areas where nutrients are deposited.
• 9:10
  Matt Chapman: We don't even have that.
• 9:11
  Matt Chapman: We've literally channelized this river between two concrete flood walls for two miles.
• 9:15
  Matt Chapman: Um, so there's no natural floodplain connection.
• 9:18
  Matt Chapman: Um, we know from some of the historical accounts that um, especially in this lower reach where we're working today, that it was once kind of uh an area that was strewn with hundreds of granite and limestone boulders, uh, which is a quote from uh Captain Charles Belmap uh from a uh M-Live or not M-Live, I'm sorry, Grand Rapids Press article uh from the early 1900s where he was reflecting uh his time as a boy on the banks of the Grand River, listening and watching the water rush around these granite and limestone boulders.
• 9:47
  Matt Chapman: All that is gone now, right?
• 9:49
  Matt Chapman: So you look outside and uh until this summer you saw just kind of this flat pools of water throughout the city.
• 9:55
  Matt Chapman: And a lot of people said, well, you know, those four little white lines, you know, those the dams, right?
• 10:00
  Matt Chapman: That those are rapids.
• 10:01
  Matt Chapman: And it's like, no, these are these are man-made dams that are a hundred years old.
• 10:05
  Matt Chapman: So um again, as we dug into that, we really realized that we had a huge opportunity, uh, you know, initially, as you mentioned, kind of focusing on economic development and whitewater recreation.
• 10:16
  Matt Chapman: But the more we learned about the history of the river, uh, endangered species, invasive species, um, the more we realized that we had a uh a huge opportunity to make this kind of a more holistic river restoration uh to the extent that we can, right?
• 10:30
  Matt Chapman: We can't remove the flood walls, obviously.
• 10:32
  Matt Chapman: We can't restore a natural floodplain, uh, but we can put a lot of rock and boulder and material back in the river that helps the aquatic species, the endangered mussels, the fish.
• 10:41
  Matt Chapman: Fish passage and fish habitat actually became a significant driver of the redesign process that we went through in 2022 through roughly 2024.
• 10:52
  Matt Chapman: Um, so we can have all of those things.
• 10:54
  Matt Chapman: We can have uh a better river.
• 10:56
  Matt Chapman: We know it's a great fishery.
• 10:58
  Matt Chapman: We think this will make it even better.
• 10:59
  Matt Chapman: Um, removing these dangerous dams creates more access opportunities for more recreational things like tubing and kayaking, uh, canoeing right through downtown.
• 11:08
  Matt Chapman: Um, so really we tried to use that history to kind of drive the design and make it something that everybody and everything in the river could benefit from.
• 11:16
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, it's kind of a triple bottom line thing, right?
• 11:18
  Jeff Cranson: You've got people that maybe are never gonna step foot in the river, but they can benefit from the economic activity that activating the river creates.
• 11:26
  Jeff Cranson: And uh, there's lots of ways that's gonna spawn other development, other things that maybe we're not even thinking about now in terms of commercial enterprises.
• 11:34
  Jeff Cranson: Um, mostly I think what excites me most is just that we're facing the river.
• 11:38
  Jeff Cranson: We're embracing, you know, what it is that made so many of our cities across the state and across the country in the first place.
• 11:45
  Jeff Cranson: Um, you talked about you know growing up on a river yourself and your appreciation for it as a living, breathing thing.
• 11:52
  Jeff Cranson: Um, and I think also for our namesake, you know, so that we're people don't come to town.
• 11:57
  Jeff Cranson: Like I remember an artist at the orbit room years ago who had to open for a pretty well-known act, and he was kind of thrown in at the last minute, and he was he was getting the brunt of it from the audience who wasn't happy that he was there instead of who they came to see.
• 12:14
  Jeff Cranson: And he retorted by on the spot crafting lyrics that included, yeah, I came to your town, it's called Grand Rapids, and there aren't even any rapids.
• 12:22
  Jeff Cranson: So um that's got to be exciting for you too, right?
• 12:27
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, you know, and it's funny, again, through a lot of our research and through the different design process, I mean, we ran into some people and even some folks within you know different agencies that kind of questioned some of that history and if there were uh actually rapids here in Grand Rapids or not.
• 12:42
  Matt Chapman: Um, and you know, of course, we we've seen, you know, there's several different reports and uh geotechnical investigations and things that we did, but um, you know, we don't have any original photos of the rapids.
• 12:52
  Matt Chapman: We actually started to change the river um before it was documented with photography.
• 12:57
  Matt Chapman: So um to kind of hear and see it uh was one thing, but I think the really cool experience uh for me this summer as they were actually removing the um low head dam in front of the Nobel and Park, uh we kind of refer to that as uh to that as dam number two.
• 13:12
  Matt Chapman: Um they were excavating uh kind of underneath that dam and they dug up this huge limestone boulder.
• 13:19
  Matt Chapman: Um and one of the engineers sent me a picture, and this boulder is actually has all these different kind of circular cutouts and uh channels and grooves that were cut into it.
• 13:30
  Matt Chapman: And um that's really the first like physical evidence we have of historic rapids.
• 13:35
  Matt Chapman: Uh so the water, the rapids, was carving, you know, those rocks and grooves in that in that huge boulder for hundreds and thousands of years.
• 13:42
  Matt Chapman: And so it was just awesome to kind of see that to know that you know we're on the right track and this is uh you know, we are kind of bringing some of that history back.
• 13:51
  Matt Chapman: Um obviously it's tough because again, we can't truly restore this back to the condition that the river originally was.
• 13:57
  Matt Chapman: The city has literally grown up right into the river or on the edges of the river, but um it's really a neat opportunity to be part of that.
• 14:04
  Matt Chapman: And again, for people that come in from two Grand Rapids and from out of town and you know, stand on the Blue Bridge today and say, wow, these rapids are really cool.
• 14:12
  Matt Chapman: Um I had a group in town a couple weeks ago, and I said, Well, where are the rapids?
• 14:16
  Matt Chapman: And they pointed to the new rapids, and I said, Can you imagine this that those weren't there three weeks ago and they were just in awe.
• 14:22
  Matt Chapman: So it's really uh it's been a lot of fun to kind of share that story and as you mentioned, bring the city's namesake back to Grand Rapids.
• 14:29
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, and you've probably visited uh Denver where there's a section of the river where that was created, and you can see the rapids, you can walk along um side them or Columbus, Georgia, certainly.
• 14:41
  Jeff Cranson: Uh even Traver City has done a small version of this.
• 14:44
  Jeff Cranson: So, what do you learn from each of those places?
• 14:48
  Matt Chapman: The biggest thing is that no uh no single river or single project is the same.
• 14:52
  Matt Chapman: All of these things have, you know, wildly, it just is just tremendously complex projects.
• 14:58
  Matt Chapman: But I think the you know the biggest takeaway is if you can get the right set of designers and engineers and you know design the best thing for whatever condition you have, um, and you find your way to make it through that.
• 15:10
  Matt Chapman: I think one is the rivers respond very quickly.
• 15:13
  Matt Chapman: Um, you know, you look at some of like the uh the big dam removals out west, and within the first year, the native salmon runs are you know they're already seeing significantly uh bigger increases in in the salmon uh populations and the runs that are getting to some of that habitat that's been cut off for hundreds of years.
• 15:30
  Matt Chapman: Um the rivers respond.
• 15:32
  Matt Chapman: Um we're really looking forward to seeing that.
• 15:34
  Matt Chapman: But I think also, you know, in Grand Rapids is a is a uh really testament to this, as well as Traver City, is the community starts to really embrace the river.
• 15:42
  Matt Chapman: Um they realize the value in the river from a recreational standpoint, from an economic development standpoint.
• 15:48
  Matt Chapman: Um, the river becomes part of the community again.
• 15:51
  Matt Chapman: And that's always been kind of a driver uh for us here in Grand Rapids is you know, the river flows right through really through all of Kent County.
• 15:58
  Matt Chapman: And for far too long we had our backs to the river, as you mentioned.
• 16:02
  Matt Chapman: And um, just in the last uh 12 years that I've been involved with the project, you know, think about all of the new parks and the new trails and the amphitheater, uh, you know, the Grand Rapids Public Museum kind of literally turned the building to have the uh the museum face the river.
• 16:18
  Matt Chapman: So we truly are embracing uh the river now as a result of this project.
• 16:22
  Matt Chapman: And you know, really we're just just getting started.
• 16:25
  Jeff Cranson: So I think a lot of people hear you know the kayak or tubing aspect and think, well, gosh, I've seen you know movies or I've been whitewater rafting out west or in West Virginia, you know, and that can be dangerous.
• 16:39
  Jeff Cranson: So um how where do you rate this, you know, this class of rapids and the kind of kayaking or floating on a tube uh you would do versus other places?
• 16:51
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, I think you know uh the rating system is uh a little arbitrary, kind of uh the example I like to use is kind of like the uh the ski ratings, right?
• 16:58
  Matt Chapman: So a black diamond here in Michigan is probably a green circle if you go out west into the mountains.
• 17:03
  Matt Chapman: So uh you're speaking my language.
• 17:05
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, yeah, I knew that I knew you'd like that.
• 17:07
  Matt Chapman: Uh so the rapids rating is kind of like that.
• 17:09
  Matt Chapman: Um, you know, the one thing that we have here in Grand Rapids is we have such a large fluctuation of flows.
• 17:15
  Matt Chapman: So in the springtime, for example, you know, we typically um because the river is only 40 miles from Lake Michigan, and actually there's very little change in elevation or change in fall of the river from Grand Rapids down to uh Lake Michigan.
• 17:28
  Matt Chapman: Um a lot of times in the spring, we see the effects of a higher tailwater, what we refer to as the Lake Michigan kind of backwater.
• 17:35
  Matt Chapman: So a lot of the um the rapid features might be drowned out in the spring.
• 17:39
  Matt Chapman: Um there could be, you know, kind of late spring, early summer uh times where they might be like a class two rapid or you know, maybe a little bit higher.
• 17:47
  Matt Chapman: Um, of course, if we get some substantial flood flows, you know, there might be times where it's actually a little too rowdy and we might not want to encourage people in the river.
• 17:54
  Matt Chapman: So um part of this work is and will be um kind of an education uh campaign.
• 18:01
  Matt Chapman: Obviously, the river's changing.
• 18:02
  Matt Chapman: People need to be cautious about the river, you know, kind of scout it out ahead of time, make sure they understand the flows.
• 18:08
  Matt Chapman: And, you know, we have a lot of bridge piers uh in downtown Grand Rapids.
• 18:12
  Matt Chapman: So um part of part of the project will be to also just kind of make sure people understand what the flows are.
• 18:17
  Matt Chapman: Obviously, we'll be encouraging, you know, proper safety, life jackets, uh, things like that.
• 18:21
  Matt Chapman: But I think there will be a lot of uh a range of opportunities as we look at kind of the July, June, July, August, summer months, you know, when you would expect more people in the water, uh, those flows will be much lower, um, probably more of like a class one rapid.
• 18:35
  Matt Chapman: Um, all of these rapids are kind of designed, you know, even if there is a whitewater area or a little faster area, it will kind of dump out into a calmer, slower area of water.
• 18:45
  Matt Chapman: Um, and then you look at you know the parks and the trails and the access along the river edges.
• 18:49
  Matt Chapman: That's something we've been trying to work with uh the city and local partners on as well, so that people know where to safely get in and get out.
• 18:56
  Jeff Cranson: So you and I discussed that uh rivers have been a source of mobility transportation, uh, you know, really since uh since long before uh our ancestors were here when uh the original First Nations people inherited the land.
• 19:12
  Jeff Cranson: Uh rivers are pretty important to transportation.
• 19:14
  Jeff Cranson: But there's another aspect to this.
• 19:16
  Jeff Cranson: You mentioned the bridges and the bridge piers, and some of the MDOT crew have had to be involved.
• 19:22
  Jeff Cranson: And I'll bet you've learned about something that the engineers talk about, which is called scour.
• 19:26
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, a big part of uh one of probably the you know only behind flooding, right?
• 19:31
  Matt Chapman: One of the project objectives was to not do anything that increases the flooding.
• 19:35
  Matt Chapman: Um, second to that was was not do anything that causes any uh infrastructure problems.
• 19:40
  Matt Chapman: So that includes bridges, flood walls.
• 19:42
  Matt Chapman: Um, part of the complexity of maybe of why it took 18 years uh because we had to very you know do a very detailed analysis of that.
• 19:50
  Matt Chapman: Um and then, yes, you look at the number of bridges that we have in downtown, some of them are under MDOT control, the rest are under city control.
• 19:58
  Matt Chapman: Um, you know, we actually learned that uh the bridges and the bridge piers specifically actually have more impact on some of the flooding in downtown.
• 20:07
  Matt Chapman: If you think about uh bridges and bridge piers kind of narrowing uh the river flow, it actually creates a little backwater effect.
• 20:13
  Matt Chapman: So again, as we went through this very intensive uh and uh highly scrutinized review process, we had to look at all of that, uh, making sure we weren't causing scour or flood problems, looking at safety, you know, what happens if somebody was pinned against a bridge pier.
• 20:29
  Matt Chapman: Um, all of that kind of was incorporated into this design process.
• 20:33
  Matt Chapman: Um and then we have to think too of the river as a trend, you know, a transportation source for not only just you know recreational users, but also for fish and unfortunately the invasive species like the sea lamp ray.
• 20:46
  Matt Chapman: So uh just as important as uh the scour was really an analysis of you know, can fish and and wildlife move up and down through the project area and get to some of the you know better spawning habitat upstream.
• 21:00
  Matt Chapman: You know, the states got um a desire they wanted uh salmon and steel had to be able to pass all the way up to Lansing just as they do today.
• 21:07
  Matt Chapman: So uh thankfully those are really strong swimmers and can get through rapids, but uh part of this was trying to make it so that some of our more um native fish species or non-jumping, uh weaker swimming fish could also get up to uh access to some of this habitat.
• 21:21
  Matt Chapman: So we really had to think about this as a big transportation uh kind of project for both people and wildlife.
• 21:29
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that's it's great.
• 21:30
  Jeff Cranson: Can't say enough about the wildlife aspect.
• 21:32
  Jeff Cranson: And what I really like is um every time I've been out there for an event to talk with you or just walking along the river, I see osprey flying overhead right in downtown Grand Rapids, and it's just really cool to see.
• 21:44
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, it's uh our uh we've got two of them that have been out every day, and it seems like every time we do a tour, it's almost like we pay the osprey to dive down and catch a fish, and and people love it.
• 21:54
  Matt Chapman: But uh the really neat thing for me, you know, that that osprey's been out there every day this summer, and um we I've actually seen them dive down and pull out a fish from behind one of our new boulders that we just installed.
• 22:05
  Matt Chapman: So I'm excited to see kind of how the fishing changes.
• 22:09
  Matt Chapman: You know, right now we get a lot of people that fish kind of up by the Sixth Street Dam or down to you know Bridge Street.
• 22:15
  Matt Chapman: I really think we're going to start to see a different use case for angling.
• 22:20
  Matt Chapman: And I think we'll see more anglers down by the museum and uh behind some of these rocks and boulders that we just installed.
• 22:26
  Matt Chapman: And uh we're working on trying to do some monitoring uh even in the spring to kind of see how the fish populations respond, and then we'll kind of keep an eye on this project for the next couple years.
• 22:35
  Matt Chapman: Hopefully we can uh you know, we learn something and hopefully we see a positive response from the fish and wildlife, and we can apply this to other dam removal projects around the state or around the country.
• 22:46
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:47
  Jeff Cranson: So, whenever anybody talks about the 18-foot drop basically within a mile from Ann Street to Fulton Street downtown, um, I don't know if you have to stop and think for a minute, you know, and think about 18 feet and how high that is from where maybe you're standing at the moment.
• 23:02
  Jeff Cranson: Do you know how that compares to other rivers in in the state?
• 23:06
  Jeff Cranson: That doesn't is there that kind of drop evident anywhere else?
• 23:10
  Matt Chapman: It's very rare.
• 23:11
  Matt Chapman: Uh, I can't remember the exact uh statistic.
• 23:13
  Matt Chapman: I want to say it's less than like 5% of rivers in the state have an area with that much gradient.
• 23:19
  Matt Chapman: Um I would say the closest one that we kind of use as a reference region, and I don't remember uh right off the top of my head what the uh the change in elevation is, but the uh St.
• 23:28
  Matt Chapman: Mary's Rapid up in the Sioux.
• 23:30
  Matt Chapman: Um very similar kind of outcropping of bedrock.
• 23:33
  Matt Chapman: I think that one might be slightly just a little bit steeper than ours, but that was one that we kind of used as uh um as a reference as we were going through the design phase.
• 23:42
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, well, that makes sense for obvious reasons, um, given what they have to transport there and why they have locks, right?
• 23:47
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 23:48
  Jeff Cranson: Well, thanks, Matt.
• 23:50
  Jeff Cranson: I uh I told you I'm gonna tack on another segment with former mayor Rosalind Bliss, who was in office for um actually I should say 15 to 24, so nine years because of the change in term limits.
• 24:03
  Jeff Cranson: But nine important years for this project.
• 24:07
  Jeff Cranson: And uh and she took over from another big supporter, former mayor George Hartwell, who is a huge fan of this project and just a huge fan of everything that you guys have been doing.
• 24:17
  Jeff Cranson: But uh thanks for giving the broad outline of this and congratulations on what you've accomplished.
• 24:24
  Matt Chapman: Yeah, thank you.
• 24:24
  Matt Chapman: You know, it's uh it's not something that any one of us did by ourselves.
• 24:28
  Matt Chapman: Uh we, you know, we could not, Grand Ruff Whitewater couldn't have done this without you know the leadership of the city and people like Mayor Hartwell and Mayor Bliss and El Legrand.
• 24:37
  Matt Chapman: I mean, we've been at this for so long.
• 24:39
  Matt Chapman: We've seen so many different changes in administrations at you know the local, state, and federal level.
• 24:43
  Matt Chapman: But we were really lucky and fortunate that uh we had that support early on, that the city embraced the project, that uh you know the community and local businesses, nonprofits all really kind of saw the value in this for a number of reasons.
• 24:56
  Matt Chapman: And um it's just again a special project to be a part of and to bring this uh the rapids back to Grand Rapids.
• 25:02
  Matt Chapman: So we really appreciate everybody's support.
• 25:05
  Matt Chapman: And uh, like I said, we're just getting started and we've got a lot more work to do.
• 25:09
  Jeff Cranson: Very well said.
• 25:10
  Jeff Cranson: So again, stay tuned to hear from former mayor Rosalynn Bliss.
• 25:13
  Jeff Cranson: Stay with us.
• 25:14
  Jeff Cranson: We'll have more on the other side of this important message.
• 25:19
  MDOT Message: It's easy to forget just how much space large trucks need to stop and maneuver.
• 25:24
  MDOT Message: When you're sharing the road, avoid lingering in a truck's blind spot, leave plenty of following distance, and never cut in too closely after passing.
• 25:32
  MDOT Message: A little extra patience helps keep everyone, truck drivers and motorists alike, safe on the road.
• 25:39
  Jeff Cranson: As mentioned in the introduction, I'm speaking with Rosalynn Bliss, the former mayor of Grand Rapids.
• 25:45
  Jeff Cranson: She actually served two terms, plus she got nine years in office.
• 25:50
  Jeff Cranson: She is now uh assistant dean over, I guess what would you say, public affairs at uh Michigan State University, College of Human Medicine?
• 26:01
  Rosalynn Bliss: Yeah, external relations.
• 26:02
  Rosalynn Bliss: So includes yeah, uh all things uh external relations, communications, marketing, government affairs.
• 26:10
  Jeff Cranson: Yes, very similar to my job, really.
• 26:12
  Jeff Cranson: So I really uh appreciate you taking time to do this, and I've always appreciated your incredible enthusiasm for the project.
• 26:20
  Jeff Cranson: Um, talk about your days going back to being a city commissioner before you were elected mayor.
• 26:27
  Jeff Cranson: What stoked your passions about restoring the rapids?
• 26:30
  Rosalynn Bliss: So when I was a city commissioner, I had the great fortune to serve on the Green Grand Rapids Committee.
• 26:35
  Rosalynn Bliss: So that was when we were updating our master plan and our parks plan.
• 26:38
  Rosalynn Bliss: And through the Green Grand Rapids Committee, we came up with a whole host of uh priorities when it came to all things green.
• 26:47
  Rosalynn Bliss: So uh trails, trees, parks, playgrounds, and uh and the river.
• 26:53
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh so it was early on in that process that a group of folks that many of us know here in the community kept saying, you know, what would it take to remove the rapids and or remove the dams and return the rapids to the river?
• 27:08
  Rosalynn Bliss: So it was kind of through that process of Green Grand Rapids that I got tied into uh this kind of energy behind uh restoring the rapids.
• 27:17
  Rosalynn Bliss: I don't think I realized it would take as long as it did, but I loved the idea.
• 27:22
  Rosalynn Bliss: I thought it was very compelling.
• 27:23
  Rosalynn Bliss: And it was really something that that, you know, no one had really talked about before.
• 27:29
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh and then, and then I think what excited me about it was this idea that it could be done.
• 27:36
  Rosalynn Bliss: You know, I think that I think it's one of those ideas that people were like, yeah, well, why couldn't we do that?
• 27:41
  Rosalynn Bliss: And what would it take?
• 27:42
  Rosalynn Bliss: And so it just started to get energy after it kind of came to light through that process.
• 27:47
  Jeff Cranson: And Matt and I talked about this, and there are some great models elsewhere.
• 27:50
  Jeff Cranson: Closest is Traverse City.
• 27:52
  Jeff Cranson: Denver did a did a great project that a lot of people see because it's in a real high-profile area of the city.
• 27:58
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, Columbus, Georgia, we know about.
• 28:01
  Jeff Cranson: But everyone is also different.
• 28:02
  Jeff Cranson: There's not there's not one that you can look at and say, this is exactly how we should do it.
• 28:06
  Jeff Cranson: 18 feet of fall, for one thing, is very unusual.
• 28:10
  Jeff Cranson: But I think what interests me most about your um ongoing advocacy for the project was what you said.
• 28:16
  Jeff Cranson: You never thought it would take this long.
• 28:18
  Jeff Cranson: And there are a lot of times you probably could have wanted to bail out, like some people did.
• 28:21
  Jeff Cranson: They were frustrated with state regulators and federal regulators, and not to mention the competing interests.
• 28:26
  Jeff Cranson: You've got the wet and the dry.
• 28:28
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, some people who are very interested in the kayaking and the recreational pursuits, others who are very interested in fishing and thought that those could be in competition, and then others who only care about the development aspect.
• 28:40
  Jeff Cranson: And I it sounds like in a triple bottom line sort of way, you've found a way to bring it all together.
• 28:45
  Rosalynn Bliss: Yeah, you know, this project has always been, and you probably know this about me as well, but this project has always been about the and.
• 28:52
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh, yes, we can do the river restoration and invest in the river's edges and see the bigger picture and really think about the entire river corridor as a whole.
• 29:03
  Rosalynn Bliss: Um, and the other thing that I remember early on when I started to get involved, and you know, I went to Washington, DC with a group really early in the project uh when I was a city commissioner.
• 29:15
  Rosalynn Bliss: And I remember even then talking about how, you know, the river, unfortunately, for a long time, has been uh a dividing line in our city between the east and the west.
• 29:26
  Rosalynn Bliss: And you don't see people interacting with the river.
• 29:29
  Rosalynn Bliss: So, how could we reimagine the river to be more of a connected tissue uh between the east and the west instead of kind of this divider?
• 29:38
  Rosalynn Bliss: So I think figuring out a way to not just talk about it and think about it holistically, but really talk about the impact it could have on our community uh about bringing people together in unity and uh kind of starting to reverse some of the divisions that have existed for a long time.
• 29:57
  Jeff Cranson: I think that you hit on something, and it's not just the city, it's really the broader region that there's a good reason if you live in Lowell or Caledonia or Kent City that you should still care about this project and what it means to our financial and entertainment center and what's going on now with the soccer stadium and the amphitheater, um, all these things that are getting us to once again face the river, which is what gave birth to the city in the first place, right?
• 30:22
  Jeff Cranson: So talk about that and what you found out in the history of knowing this, uh, knowing about what happened and how we use the river.
• 30:30
  Jeff Cranson: And again, I talked to Matt about this.
• 30:33
  Jeff Cranson: That I can't blame people for 150 years ago thinking of it only as a as an industrial use commodity and and not in terms of the environmental impact because nobody was thinking about those things in those days.
• 30:45
  Jeff Cranson: So, how has that gone when you talk to people about this?
• 30:48
  Jeff Cranson: Because you know, you're an environmentalist, you're a huge advocate for sustainability.
• 30:52
  Jeff Cranson: So that all dovetails, right?
• 30:55
  Rosalynn Bliss: It really does.
• 30:55
  Rosalynn Bliss: And you're absolutely right.
• 30:56
  Rosalynn Bliss: The history is we turned our back on the river, it wasn't seen as a natural asset.
• 31:01
  Rosalynn Bliss: And you named other cities.
• 31:03
  Rosalynn Bliss: I've been to almost all of them, including Greenville, South Carolina, and looked what they at what they did uh with their river restoration project.
• 31:09
  Rosalynn Bliss: There's great examples all over.
• 31:11
  Rosalynn Bliss: And I I think you're right.
• 31:12
  Rosalynn Bliss: There was an era over a hundred years ago where people didn't see these beautiful natural assets as assets, other than, you know, kind of the to dump your waste into.
• 31:21
  Rosalynn Bliss: And many cities turn their back just like we did to the river.
• 31:25
  Rosalynn Bliss: You saw that even with our flood walls, we're starting to tear those down and and create barriers that are more um, you know, stared and stepped down where people can get down to the river and actually touch the river.
• 31:37
  Rosalynn Bliss: So I do feel like this project helped us think about how we value the river differently, but also recognize that it's part of a much bigger effort, not just Grand Rapids.
• 31:52
  Rosalynn Bliss: Um, it's really about Kent County, West Michigan.
• 31:54
  Rosalynn Bliss: You know, it connects to the lake.
• 31:57
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh, the work that's being done around river trails has been really instrumental to get people to think about how do you recreate on the river differently and provide spaces for people to stop and get it in and out of the river safely.
• 32:09
  Rosalynn Bliss: So I think you're absolutely right.
• 32:11
  Rosalynn Bliss: The the history of the river is fascinating and kind of how not just our city, but other cities have treated rivers.
• 32:17
  Rosalynn Bliss: And I love that we're, I feel like we're like reclaiming the river as one of our most beautiful natural assets in our city.
• 32:26
  Rosalynn Bliss: Um, right in the middle of this growing built concrete environment that's all around it, especially downtown Grand Rapids.
• 32:35
  Rosalynn Bliss: And so it's been, it's been a really fun project to be a part of and just help people see the bigger picture.
• 32:42
  Jeff Cranson: How cool has it been for you to go other places before you left office in 2024 and at the end of 2024, and maybe since then, um, whether it was the Conference of Mayors or something else, and talk about this project and say, guess what?
• 32:55
  Jeff Cranson: My town is named Grand Rapids and it's gonna have rapids again.
• 32:58
  Rosalynn Bliss: Yeah, it's been really fun.
• 33:00
  Rosalynn Bliss: And I've also got to know the mayors who are part of river restoration projects in other cities.
• 33:04
  Rosalynn Bliss: And it's it was it was always very reassuring to me hearing from other mayors who who said, okay, if you think this is gonna take five years, it's really gonna take 10.
• 33:15
  Rosalynn Bliss: Or if you think it's gonna take 10, it's really gonna take 20.
• 33:17
  Rosalynn Bliss: So having some wisdom and perspective from other mayors who helped kind of lead similar charges uh was helpful to me to kind of stay the course.
• 33:26
  Rosalynn Bliss: That tends to be my nature anyway, to not give up and to, you know, persistence, I say, is a superpower.
• 33:33
  Rosalynn Bliss: And I think that's one of mine, uh, just to be really persistent and not give up.
• 33:38
  Rosalynn Bliss: But it talking to other mayors, I've served on panels where I get to talk about this project.
• 33:43
  Rosalynn Bliss: I've got to go to, as you said, to US conference mayors and other mayor conferences and highlight this project.
• 33:49
  Rosalynn Bliss: And it is fun to say, we're named Grand Rapids for a reason.
• 33:53
  Rosalynn Bliss: And uh pretty soon you're gonna come back and be able to see that.
• 33:57
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, and how many times did you get to say, look, this is gonna take some time and you know, the persistence, but also the patience, and you had to talk people off the ledge and talk about not foregoing the good for the perfect, right?
• 34:10
  Rosalynn Bliss: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:11
  Rosalynn Bliss: That's it, you know, it, you know, people get so emotionally invested in in a project like this.
• 34:19
  Rosalynn Bliss: And so walking into there was we had, I I I should write a book about it.
• 34:24
  Rosalynn Bliss: We had so many potential hurdles that could have killed this project.
• 34:29
  Rosalynn Bliss: And just consistently giving people time to kind of, you know, let their emotions not get the best of them, identifying who are the right people we need to convene, what is the problem we need to solve, how are we gonna solve it?
• 34:44
  Rosalynn Bliss: What is an alternative?
• 34:45
  Rosalynn Bliss: What is another solution?
• 34:47
  Rosalynn Bliss: And just consistently saying, we're gonna figure this out, we're not gonna give up.
• 34:52
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh, I kind of felt like there were times I my ultimate job was to just be a cheerleader and help people who felt really deflated and defeated feel optimistic again and kind of kind of pick themselves back up and say, okay, we're not giving up.
• 35:07
  Rosalynn Bliss: That's not what we do here.
• 35:08
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh, and then and then also solving like genuine problems and listening uh to what the legitimate concerns were and then saying, okay, how can how can we address that?
• 35:20
  Rosalynn Bliss: Um, so a lot of it was problem solving, but some of it was just being that constant convener of, okay, we're gonna get through this, whether it's meeting with the federal partners or with the Army Corps of Engineers or with Great Lakes Fisheries or you name it.
• 35:34
  Rosalynn Bliss: I mean, I have I spent a lot of hours as mayor just pulling meetings together and problem solving.
• 35:41
  Jeff Cranson: And I'm guessing that you leaned on a number of people to help remind you why you needed to stay the course, probably not least of which your predecessor, George Hartwell, who was a big proponent of the project.
• 35:50
  Jeff Cranson: And if you went to him, he'd say, you know, hang in there, right?
• 35:53
  Jeff Cranson: We're gonna get this done.
• 35:54
  Rosalynn Bliss: So yeah, yep.
• 35:55
  Rosalynn Bliss: George has been uh Mayor Hartwell is amazing.
• 35:58
  Rosalynn Bliss: And, you know, it was under his leadership that we were designated as an Urban Waters uh designated project, which moved us along, even though people at the time didn't really appreciate that.
• 36:08
  Rosalynn Bliss: And you know what else I think is helpful, uh, was I should say was helpful to me when I was mayor.
• 36:14
  Rosalynn Bliss: You know, I had the privilege to um spend time, especially early in my career as mayor.
• 36:20
  Rosalynn Bliss: I got to spend time with both Mayor Logie and Mayor Hartwell.
• 36:23
  Rosalynn Bliss: You know, having time with them where they could give me perspective too.
• 36:28
  Rosalynn Bliss: I mean, the sewer separation project took almost 30 years, right?
• 36:32
  Rosalynn Bliss: Like they're like the important things that we do for our community, many of them we're not gonna be able to start and finish under our under our time as mayor, especially not now because of term limits, unfortunately.
• 36:45
  Rosalynn Bliss: So you do you do have to have kind of the you always have to be thinking about the long game, right?
• 36:52
  Rosalynn Bliss: This isn't about what I can, you know, check off my list.
• 36:56
  Rosalynn Bliss: It's what I can tee up to make sure happens, hopefully within my lifetime.
• 37:00
  Rosalynn Bliss: I kept telling George that.
• 37:02
  Rosalynn Bliss: I kept saying to George, I'm really gonna try to get this done.
• 37:05
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh you know, I I said that about a number of things um that I knew were a priority to him, that he had to hand the baton to me to continue to lead on.
• 37:15
  Rosalynn Bliss: But you do you do have to just have faith.
• 37:18
  Rosalynn Bliss: I think that's part of it too.
• 37:20
  Jeff Cranson: That's a testament to the proverb uh that society is made great by men and women who plant trees in whose shade they'll never sit, right?
• 37:29
  Rosalynn Bliss: That's yeah, it's one of my favorites.
• 37:32
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, the long-term thinking.
• 37:33
  Jeff Cranson: Well, I don't know if there's anything else you want to say, Rosalind.
• 37:37
  Jeff Cranson: I really appreciate your perspective.
• 37:38
  Jeff Cranson: It's a really nice supplement to Matt's more technical overview of the project.
• 37:42
  Jeff Cranson: And really, congratulations on where this is at.
• 37:46
  Jeff Cranson: It's really cool to look down there and see excavators in the river.
• 37:49
  Jeff Cranson: And especially during our prize when there's so many people walking around and learning about it, probably for the first time, even though there's been plenty of media coverage for the last 18 years.
• 37:58
  Jeff Cranson: I think a lot of people are just tuning in because they're looking down there and seeing a big bucket, you know, and saying, What are they doing?
• 38:04
  Jeff Cranson: So yeah.
• 38:05
  Rosalynn Bliss: Yeah, well, I'd say two things.
• 38:06
  Rosalynn Bliss: One, you'll probably find me sitting at Line Square watching it because it just warms my heart.
• 38:11
  Rosalynn Bliss: Um, but I do think, you know, for so long, I think people really started to believe that this would, this project would never happen.
• 38:18
  Rosalynn Bliss: So it's wonderful that it's getting the attention that it's getting today, even though a lot of work went into getting us to where we are today.
• 38:25
  Rosalynn Bliss: And the other thing I would say, you know, I think especially now in this season that we're in, where there's growing um distrust, but maybe even disdain to some extent, of government and people who work and serve in government.
• 38:42
  Rosalynn Bliss: I can tell you, some of the most important progress that we have made, especially on this project, is because people from state departments and federal departments came together and worked really hard to get to yes.
• 38:59
  Rosalynn Bliss: Like I'm grateful to have worked with so many talented public servants.
• 39:04
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh and honestly, we we probably would not be in the water today if it wasn't for um a lot of people and state departments or federal departments that helped us get here.
• 39:17
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that's a nice thing to say.
• 39:19
  Jeff Cranson: And I uh mentioned earlier that uh this is a podcast about transportation, but rivers have been a form of transportation uh you know for hundreds of years, obviously.
• 39:30
  Jeff Cranson: And MDOT has been side by side with the DNR and with DEQ now EGLE in that process that you're talking about because of the bridges and the piers and the water and concerns about that.
• 39:41
  Jeff Cranson: And everybody at Whitewater has been great to work with.
• 39:44
  Jeff Cranson: And I should mention the spiritual aspect of this the work with I like the Canadian term First Nations.
• 39:51
  Jeff Cranson: Um so the people who have been involved and given it their blessing because they've been engaged and been communicated with from the start.
• 39:59
  Jeff Cranson: And that was a really nice thing at the kickoff, I think, to include Ron Yab in that.
• 40:04
  Jeff Cranson: So I guess you can talk a little bit about that aspect.
• 40:08
  Rosalynn Bliss: Yeah, this that you know that that was um a very intentional decision made from the very beginning is to make sure that we were we were working really closely with uh local leaders from the local tribes.
• 40:22
  Rosalynn Bliss: Um and you're right, Ron's amazing.
• 40:24
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh, we've learned so much about the history of our city and uh the people who were here long before the rest of us.
• 40:33
  Rosalynn Bliss: Uh and it I think that I think that early intention of inclusion has made the project so much more rich in so many ways.
• 40:44
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I agree.
• 40:45
  Jeff Cranson: It was a really nice touch.
• 40:46
  Jeff Cranson: And um I think that relationship will continue.
• 40:49
  Jeff Cranson: It's because of that project, it strengthened the relationship, and that'll help in other areas too.
• 40:54
  Jeff Cranson: So Yeah, so true.
• 40:56
  Jeff Cranson: Thank you again, Rosalind.
• 40:57
  Jeff Cranson: I appreciate you taking time to talk about this.
• 40:59
  Rosalynn Bliss: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 41:00
  Rosalynn Bliss: Thank you for including me.
• 41:01
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation.
• 41:05
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or BuzzSprout.
• 41:09
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, and Jackie Salinas, who posts the podcast to various platforms and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.