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State crews are taking another run at opening up Grand Traverse Harbor, after storms this fall washed more stamp sands into it.
The most recent erosion pretty much filled in the areas that were dredged out last summer.
The sand is leftover from the stamp plants that crushed mine ore for the Wolverine and Mohawk mines in Gay beginning in 1902. Some of the sand was dumped directly into Lake Superior. The rest was piled in banks along the shoreline.
Currents have pushed the sand southerly along the Keweenaw Peninsula coast, and are now threatening the valuable fish spawning ground offshore at Buffalo Reef.
Jay Parent of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy’s Water Resources Division in Marquette says it won’t be easy to clean up 1,400 acres of beach and lake bottom that have been covered…
Late last summer, the federal Environmental Protection Agency allocated $3.7 million to help with the cleanup. The state kicked in an additional $3 million.
That effort has included some dredging to protect Buffalo Reef, and moving the large banks of stamp sand still on the beach away from the water’s edge to cut down on erosion…
The latest dredging project will remove the stamp sands from the Grand Traverse harbor, and from the beach up to 1,000 feet north of the breakwater.
Officials say they’ll complete as much work as they can this winter, to have the area ready for recreational activities next summer.
