History

One of the first causes of the Anglers was the No Kill, or Catch and Release, regulations on the mainstream’s Holy Water stretch as well as four miles of the South Branch. Led by Jim Schramm, the Anglers used legal and diplomatic channels to press for catch-and-release regulations beginning in 1986. Despite some local opposition, Angler’s pressed forward with state and legal strategies, and in 1987, Crawford Circuit Judge Alton Davis made catch & release permanent. In November, 1988, the Michigan Court of Appeals upholds catch and release regulations for Mainstream, a huge victory for the Anglers. The new regulation went into effect April 1989.

In 1990, Angler’s paid $5,000 toward removal of Salling Dam, to help lower the mean water temperatures in the Mainstream. We received corporate contributions from Patagonia and Orvis.

In 2004 and 2005, Anglers’ helped pay for work on the Mill Pond Dam, making it possible for fish from downstream to swim as far as Frederic.

Anglers’ members are also part of the Michigan Hydropower Relicensing Coalition, creates to intervene in Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing proceedings involving hydropower relicensing in Michigan. This included but was not limited to the Consumers Power dams on the Au Sable, Manistee and Muskegon Rivers. The effort resulted in good settlements which led to improved operational regimes, installation of mitigation measures, and creation of the Habitat Improvement Fund which was dedicated to the three watersheds mentioned above – all leading to better fishing.

Unchecked gas and oil exploration have had a profound negative impact on the greater Au Sable region in recent years. Anglers’ has taken on the Department of Natural Resources and private businesses that have failed to control exploration and production concerns that have allowed pollution of soil, air, ground water – and even the surface water of the Au Sable and its headwaters.

Unfettered exploration corralled

In 1992, a grassroots organization, the Michigan Environmental Trust Limited (METL), brought suit against some of these companies and the Department of Natural Resources seeking to reduce stream sedimentation and forest fragmentation. The Anglers and Trout Unlimited joined the suit. Legal expenses, expert witnesses, environmental consultants and miscellaneous expenses far exceeded $100,000.

In December 1992, Ingham County Judge Carolyn Stell issued a temporary injunction effective in the five hardest hit counties. The injunction provided that all pipeline stream crossings in those counties were to be made by boring beneath the streambeds rather than by plowing or trenching across the streambed surface. Judge Stell also ordered the DNR to produce an environmental impact statement that showed gas development was a significant source of trout stream pollution by sedimentation.

In late 1994 a compromise was reached regarding requiring that wells be spaced 80 acres apart, double the old distance.

Kolka Creek kept pure

In the early 2000s, the state approved a permit to allow Merit Energy to dump contaminated oil drilling fluids into Kolka Creek, an important tributary in the headwaters of the Au Sable. Anglers stepped up to fight the discharge, taking legal action that resulted in withdrawal of the state’s approval and protection of the creek – and the river.

Protecting the South Branch from oil development

In 2013, Anglers became aware that the state Department of Natural Resources was going to allow oil and gas companies to bid for leases on land interspersed throughout the heart of the Au Sable [River], its Holy Water. A third of those parcels were designated to allow the construction of production facilities and the installation of drilling rigs, storage tanks, compressors, and the other equipment necessary for oil and gas production.

Anglers went to work to protect this special piece of Michigan. We twice asked the DNR to remove the parcels from the October mineral rights auction; the DNR sided with the oil industry. We used our members to make sure the DNR, Natural Resources Commission, Department of Environmental Quality and Governor’s office were aware of their mistake, and raised the issue with other groups and news media around the state.

We partnered Michigan Trout Unlimited (plus two local chapters), the Sierra Club, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Michigan Environmental Council, and the Au Sable Big Water Preservation Association were all on board. In the end 17 groups, businesses and governmental bodies signed on to a letter opposing the leases in a letter sent to top government officials in late 2013.

Thousands of emails and letters flooded into the DNR director, and in the end, the department backed down. Anglers – and its many members and friends – had protected the Au Sable once again.

When the state allowed expansion of the Grayling Fish Hatchery, permitting it to raise 300,000 pounds of fish a year and treat the East Branch as its open sewer, Anglers’ stepped in.
We spent several hundred thousand dollars proving the damage the farm would do to the river, adding pollution, dumping uneaten food into the stream and allowing hatchery fish – and their diseases – into river to threaten the natural fishery.

After a six-year battle, including days of hearings before an administrative law judge and positive rulings for Anglers from a Crawford County Circuit Judge, Anglers decided to reach a settlement with the fish farm operators.

The agreement closed the commercial fish farm permanently. Anglers assumed the lease from Crawford County and agreed to restore the hatchery to a much smaller tourist attraction with educational opportunities. We have turned operation over to a locally formed group, and are working to completely separate the hatchery and its races from the East Branch to protect the river.

Since 1991, Anglers has sponsored writing contests at local high schools. The contest started small, at one school, Grayling High School. Since, the context has expanded to other schools in the region. Winners are printed in the Anglers’ print newsletter, The Riverwatcher.

Anglers has sponsored a number of college interns to collect important river information, providing us with useful data while giving students valuable hands-on experience. They have investigated soil erosion at stream crossings of the Au Sable, collected canoeing impact data, conducted water turbidity studies and more.

Each year, Anglers’ provides a scholarship to a youth to attend the annual Trout Unlimited kids camp, helping create future anglers.