Watching the Waters of Saginaw Bay

Water is essential to life. It is also a dynamic resource, shaped by the lands it flows through and how people use those lands. As streams become rivers, and rivers flow to lakes and oceans, they carry runoff from the surrounding lands that impacts the health of the entire system.

The blue waters of Saginaw Bay are no exception to this rule. That’s why The Nature Conservancy and partners launched a new initiative in 2018—the Saginaw Bay Monitoring Consortium (SBMC). Over the past five years, we have worked together to plan and establish a comprehensive monitoring system and tools that will help us all understand just how water quality is changing throughout the Saginaw Bay watershed—over time and at scale.

“We know that water quality in Saginaw Bay is degraded, including elevated levels of nutrients—phosphorus and nitrogen,” says Dr. Doug Pearsall, Senior Conservation Scientist for TNC. “But before now, efforts to monitor trends in water quality over time have not been coordinated or long-term. We and our partners knew that if we’re going to make the right decisions about land management in the watershed, we need more robust, comprehensive data.”

"We and our partners knew that if we’re going to make the right decisions about land management in the watershed, we need more robust, comprehensive data.”

Dr. Doug Pearsall, Senior Conservation Scientist for TNC

The Saginaw Bay watershed is the largest watershed in Michigan— spanning 5.5 million acres and 22 counties, and fed by more than 7,000 miles of rivers and streams, including the Saginaw River and its major tributaries the Cass, Shiawassee and Tittabawassee rivers. It is also the third largest agricultural watershed in the U.S. Great Lakes.

As in agricultural watersheds across the country, common row crop practices release an excess of nutrients and sediment into this watershed’s streams and rivers. This runoff threatens the health of aquatic habitat and Great Lakes fisheries and contributes to harmful algal blooms and unhealthy beach conditions in Saginaw Bay.

More data on water quality isn’t just important to addressing current challenges like these, but also making the right decisions in the future. “A detailed, location-specific understanding of water quality throughout the watershed is helpful to anyone making decisions about resource management in the area, including drinking water, fisheries management and recreation,” says Doug.

And that’s where the SBMC comes in. This initiative, funded by the EPA and private foundation grants, is modeled, in part, on the decades long monitoring of western Lake Erie tributaries by the National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg University (ncwqr.org).

"Now that we’ve raised the necessary funding and established a shared plan, our partners are excited to move forward with a new monitoring system.”

Dr. Doug Pearsall, Senior Conservation Scientist for TNC

“Now that we’ve raised the necessary funding and established a shared plan, our partners are excited to move forward with a new monitoring system,” says Doug. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has begun installing 11 new stream gages at strategic points throughout the watershed, in addition to seven existing gages. Saginaw Valley State University will also be using these stream gage locations to take weekly water samples. Combined with 10 monitoring sites in the bay itself—five of which are newly enabled by funding to NOAA—these 18 tributary monitoring stations will provide a comprehensive network of data collection points.

Going forward, TNC will continue to convene the SBMC, while SBMC partners coordinate monitoring efforts. TNC will also contribute by developing an online dashboard, helping to make the consortium’s information and data publicly available. In particular, the SBMC aims to help inform:

• Actions to reduce significant environmental damage in the Saginaw River and Bay “Area of Concern” (AOC) as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Targets for nutrient level reductions in Saginaw Bay, under Annex 4 of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
• Watershed restoration and management decision making by watershed groups and municipal stormwater managers.

“By making this information available to all, we can help a diverse range of interested groups, from conservation organizations to policymakers, measure progress and set meaningful goals for nutrient and sediment runoff reductions,” says Doug.

It’s also deeply important to TNC’s conservation work in the Saginaw Bay watershed. Here, TNC and many partners are working to encourage the use of on-farm conservation practices that reduce nutrient runoff and protect water quality.

“The farmers, agribusiness professionals and conservation practitioners that we work with in the Saginaw Bay watershed have repeatedly identified the lack of local data as a limiting factor when it comes to deciding how to manage farmlands in the Saginaw Bay watershed,” Doug explains. “Connecting these groups with relevant information is vital to supporting a permanent shift to the on-farm conservation practices that will support thriving farms and clean water in the watershed.”

TNC will also use this data as we work to engage new farmers in soil health practices. This includes supporting farmer-led watershed groups, including a newly formed group in the lower Shiawassee River watershed, that take a leadership role in ensuring healthy lands and waters in their local area. It also includes assessing the effectiveness of our soil health and water quality programs over time, and adapting our approach for greater impact.

“There’s a lot of potential in this monitoring network for improved information flow and decision-making around Saginaw Bay’s natural resources, and we’re glad to be a part of it,” says Doug. “Ideally, it’s an approach that could be replicated in other areas of the Great Lakes experiencing similar water quality challenges.”?